SOCIETY’S “DETESTATION” of the crime of burglary has not lessened since times when it attracted the death penalty, a High Court judge said yesterday when refusing to halt the trial of a man on burglary charges.
Mr Justice John Hedigan said that throughout civilisation, burglary has been considered “one of the most serious crimes known to law”. In many societies, burglary attracted the death penalty, “frequently attended by gruesome barbarities”, to demonstrate peoples’ loathing for the violation of the sanctity of their homes.
“More civilised times have moderated the severity of these penalties, but society’s detestation of this particular crime has not lessened.”
He made the remarks in a judgment rejecting an application by John McDonagh, Mooney Terrace, Kilcormack, Offaly, and St Joseph’s Park, Dunsink Lane, Finglas, Dublin, for an order halting his trial on charges of burglary in August 1999 when three guns were stolen from a house.
Mr McDonagh was charged at Bray District Court in May 2000 and subsequently failed to appear and warrants were issued for his arrest. He was eventually re-arrested in October 2002 after his details were placed on the Garda Pulse system.
He then sought an injunction restraining his continued prosecution on grounds including that alleged inordinate delay in execution of the warrants had prejudiced his right to a fair trial. He also claimed his defence was prejudiced because he could no longer locate a potential witness who would give evidence Mr McDonagh had previously been in the house in question and that was an explanation why his fingerprints were found there.
Mr Justice Hedigan said, in weighing the balance between availability of a witness and society’s interest in the prosecution of serious crime, he believed the issue of witness availability could be dealt with by the trial judge.
He said “the devastation caused to the lives of those whose homes have been violated by criminals seeking to live off the hard work of others is incalculable”. Victims had frequently described their inability to ever enjoy again a sense of security in their home after a burglary, he said.
In Mr McDonagh’s case, three guns were allegedly stolen and this placed this particular crime at the “highest level of gravity”. The arguments in favour of stopping his prosecution were “heavily outweighed” by society’s interest in prosecuting this offence.
In dismissing the complaints of inordinate delay in prosecution, the judge said gardaí had made numerous attempts to execute the warrant for his arrest. It seemed Mr McDonagh was “no fool and carefully gave incorrect details of name, age and address in order to throw the gardaí off the scent”, the judge said.