A CAR salesman is to receive an undisclosed sum of money after Dublin City Council wrongly accused him in the High Court yesterday of having spent almost 10 years in prison.
The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, said he was “staggered” that Gary O’Brien had been wrongly accused of serving a prison term for what could only have been one of the “most serious crimes in the lexicon of crime”. He suggested the council should be very glad of “a life line” to enter into talks with Mr O’Brien’s side.
Mr O’Brien, Ryders Row, Dublin, faced proceedings by the council aimed at having him vacate three council-owned properties which he claimed he had to take over in 1988 to ensure the security of his Parnell Car Sales business.
In opposing the council’s application for orders for possession of the properties at 11 and 12 Ryders Row and 67 Capel Street, Mr O’Brien said he had not trespassed but was forced to put locks on the doors of those properties to stop people breaking into his car business at 13 Ryders Row.
The council claimed he could not have been in possession as, it alleged, he served almost 10 years in Mountjoy Prison between 1992 and 2001. It withdrew that claim later yesterday.
In opening the council’s case yesterday morning, Dominick Hussey SC, said they would be calling evidence in the afternoon from a prison officer to show Mr O’Brien served two terms of imprisonment between 1992 and 1997 and 1997 and 2001.
When the case resumed after lunch, Mr Hussey said he wished to withdraw the claim about the alleged imprisonment, as it was inaccurate.
Mistaken information had been provided by a private investigator in 2003, compounded by information obtained from the prison service, counsel said.