The High Court has reserved judgment on a bid by retired Dublin assistant county manager Mr George Redmond to stop his trial on alleged corruption charges from proceeding before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
|
|
Redmond: seeking to halt trial
|
The High Court heard this afternoon that the media would have been extremely foresighted if they had known that the DPP was going to bring charges against Mr Redmond.
Mr Redmond, the former Dublin assistant county manager, claims he cannot get a fair trial at the moment because of extensive adverse publicity about his affairs. While he did not appear in court today, he was represented by his lawyers.
Representing the DPP, Mr Patrick Gageby SC, told Mr Justice Kearns that out of 144 exhibits of media coverage of Mr Redmond presented to the court by him, 113 were from dates before he had been charged with corruption.
He said the majority of articles in the media about Mr Redmond were contemporaneous as they were reporting on his appearances at the Flood tribunal, his arrest at Dublin Airport on January 19th, 1999 and his prosecution for failing to make tax returns.
The reality was that Mr Redmond had refrained from moving his application when the litigation could have been decided before the trial date had been fixed, counsel said. The issue could have been dealt with by the Circuit Court on June 4th last - when the trial had been scheduled to commence - by way of an adjournment application. What was before the High Court now was a disguised application for an adjournment, he contended.
Mr Gageby said it was inconceivable that the evidence laid before the High Court could not have been laid before the Circuit Court. Most of what was being put out in the media was roughly contemperaneous with Mr Redmond's testimony to the Flood tribunal, he added.
It could not be presumed that the persons who would be selected to do jury duty would have read any or all of the material.
Earlier, counsel for Mr Redmond, Mr Paddy McEntee SC, argued that because of the extensive media coverage about Mr Redmond any jury couldn't help but being prejudiced against his client. He accused the media of being "unmindful" of the chances of Mr Redmond receiving a fair trail.
However, Mr Gageby said a Supreme Court judgment in the "Z Case" stated that the bulwark against prejudice was the oath of the jurors. It also stated that the instruction of the trial judge to the jurors to be impartial was adequate.
He said: "We cannot assume that a jury have no minds of their own and will disregard their oath and impartiality". Mr Justice Kearns agreed with Mr Gageby that Mr Redmond did not seek a prohibition order preventing his trial for corruption on the date of return for trial and said that by leaving it till five weeks before the trial date, to apply for the order, he was leaving himself open to the accusation of using delaying tactics.
Mr McEntee said that he did not do so because no judge was in place for the trial and that the closer to the trial was, the more real the issue of an unfair trial becomes.
Earlier he told the court: "There's not a sinner left in Ireland who hasn't been affected by all of this [media coverage]". He said coverage had been going on for the last four years and had reached "saturation point".
Yesterday, Mr Justice Kearns heard that the affairs of Mr Redmond have been the subject of an "orgy of coverage" by the media for the past four years.
Mr McEntee said his client "has become the standard of how you measure things and that's what people are going to bring into the jury box, and you can't shed that."
He described an "orgy" of media coverage, "blanket coverage, blanket comment, derisory material, and gossip".
At the start of the hearing, Mr Justice Kearns requested the media not to report on the content of newspaper articles, broadcast reports and books referring to Mr Redmond that are read out in court.
Mr Redmond's lawyers supplied Mr Justice Kearns with a file of documents taken from newspapers, a book and radio reports that they claim show he cannot be tried by an impartial jury at this time.
Mr Justice Kearns said he expected to give his judgement no later than "Friday fortnight".