A commotion broke out in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday following a suspected attempt to pass drugs to a handcuffed prisoner. Judge Kieran O'Connor had to adjourn Court 24 in Chancery Place when scuffling began in the overcrowded courtroom which another judge has described as "a fire hazard".
Some 200 people were in the courtroom when the commotion started after a prison officer observed something being passed to a convicted man who is already serving a five-year sentence. Prison officers shouted "spit it out" to him while attempting to recover the item he was believed to have put in his mouth.
Gardai moved to help while friends and relatives of prisoners screamed.
The prisoner was eventually carried by prison officers out to the cells through the large crowd while the man suspected of passing the item was taken into custody.
This is not the first time there has been a problem in Court 24, where prisoners have to be moved through large crowds standing at the back of the room. Prison officers and gardai know that heroin, cannabis and other drugs have reach the prisons this way but can do little due to the conditions in the court.