A 27-year-old man accused of unlawful possession of firearms has been found not guilty by direction of the judge at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Mr Paul Corbally (27), of Drumfinn Avenue, Ballyfermot, had pleaded not guilty to possession of a firearm, "a component of a double-barrelled shotgun", for unlawful purposes on June 5th, 1997. Judge Frank O'Donnell directed the jury to return the not-guilty verdict on the second day of the trial after considering submissions by Mr Paul McDermott SC, defending, that the component Mr Corbally had was not essential to discharge the firearm.
The component in question was the fore-end hand grip of a double-barrelled shotgun.
Judge O'Donnell said the relevant law, the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990, did not define whether a component had to be essential to the discharging of a weapon for its possession to be an offence.
He said the only relevant expert evidence had come from Det Garda Seamus Quinn, a ballistics expert, who said a "component" in this context referred to an essential or integral part of the firearm.
Det Garda Quinn said the grip was necessary to hold the barrels together, to cock the gun and to eject spent cartridges, but agreed with Mr McDermott it could still be fired without the grip.
Mr McDermott said this definition suggested that the fore-end grip was, therefore, a stand-alone part of the gun, and did not fall into the "essential and integral" definition that Det Sgt Quinn had earlier given of "component".
The judge said he could not agree with Mr Brendan Grehan, prosecuting, that in the absence of a clear definition of the term "component" in the Act, the court should take the broadest possible interpretation of it.