A roundup of today's other courts news in brief
Seized €100,000 to go to exchequer
A Dublin Circuit Court judge has ordered that more than €100,000 seized from a Tallaght taxi driver as part of a Garda investigation into drug dealing be handed over to the State.
Judge Desmond Hogan approved an application by Dominic McGinn, counsel for the State, requesting that €114, 971 found in the possession of Bernard Fitzsimons (28), of Glenshane Grove, Tallaght, be deemed the proceeds of criminal activity and be forfeit to the exchequer. Counsel for the accused Lorcan Staines made no objection to the application. Mr McGinn told the court that members of the Garda National Drug Unit intercepted Mr Fitzsimons as he attempted to flee the scene of a major drug deal.
Judge Hogan also ordered that €1,029 of the cash be returned to Mr Fitzsimons.
File for DPP over man who died after collapsing in Garda cell
The Garda Ombudsman Commission is preparing to forward a file to the DPP over the death of a 32-year-old man found collapsed in a cell in a Dublin Garda station, an inquest was told yesterday.
Mark Anthony Reidy, of Keeper Road, Drimnagh, Dublin, was found unresponsive in Terenure Garda station on December 30th, 2007.
He was taken to St James’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A postmortem by deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis found he died of methadone and alcohol intoxication.
He also had a pre-existing coronary artery disease.
Verdict due in case of sex assault on girl (13)
A JURY verdict is expected today on a man accused of sex assaults on a 13-year-old schoolgirl. The man yesterday admitted full sex but insisted he thought she was much older. The man said he had met the girl when he was 19 in a fast-food cafe and with other friends a few weeks after he returned to Ireland from England in 2003. Now 26, he repeated in the witness box at Donegal Circuit Court: “If I had known I would have left her alone.”
He added that when gardaí told him the girl’s age: “I was sickened.” When his counsel, Desmond Murphy, SC, reminded him of the girl’s evidence that she played with dolls, he said he didn’t recall her playing with any toys.