Heartbeats, love and Lucozade

Heartbeats, love and Lucozade


A sideways glance at happenings in Castlebar District Court

Sketch
Edwin McGreal

We’d be waking the man from The Connaught Telegraph this week if looks could kill.
During a slow case in Castlebar District Court last Wednesday, the scribes from The CT and The Mayo News fell into chat about the Mayo Senior Club Championship.
Our colleague was talking about Garrymore’s chances when he received a cold, hard stare from the bench.
Maybe Judge Mary Devins has Hollymount connections.
We then had the poor cratur who was up for motoring offences but wasn’t in court. His solicitor told us he was up the road in Mayo General Hospital, where he was on a 24 hour heart-monitoring programme.
Judge Devins said it would be easy enough for him to call down, and so down he came, heart monitor and all. He showed it to us too, lest we were doubting his bona fides.
Judge Devins wryly observed that the monitor might go up ‘a few beats’ while in court. The matter was adjourned for two weeks. Maybe that day might provide a more accurate test of his heart rate under stressful conditions.
Adjournments are common but there was one for the books last Wednesday when a solicitor asked for a case to be adjourned, as although his client was in court, he was ‘under the weather’. For ‘under the weather’, read showing the effects of alcohol consumption. Judge Devins took one look at him and granted the adjournment.
The failure of the Prison Service to produce a defendant from Castlerea Prison was one instance too many for the judge in charge of district court area number three.
“If that agency of the state considers the district court not important enough, then I will consider striking it out,” said Judge Devins.
She did too, despite the protestations from Inspector Mandy Gaynor (prosecuting). Inspector Gaynor said a lot of garda work had gone into the case and that the defendant’s nonappearance was ‘an oversight’ by the Prison Service.
Judge Devins said it had happened ‘too many times, and always in the district court’.
“I believe in the seriousness of the district court, but that doesn’t seem to cross all agencies,” she concluded.
And if you ever appear before Judge Devins, whatever your crime, be sure to address her as ‘Judge’. Not m’am, miss or your honour. And most certainly not what one poor woman said a couple of months ago.
The single mother was up for not having paid her TV licence. When asked why she had not paid, she said she was struggling financially. So far, so good.
It unravelled though when she called the judge ‘love’. A knowing silence descended on the court. Short of terms of abuse, as ways to address the judge go, love is among the worst. The solicitors, gardaí and reporters present all know this.
Judge Devins looked down at the woman.
“I wouldn’t dream of calling you love, not in a million, zillion years. I just think it’s rude. Would you call Mr (Vincent) Deane (State Solicitor) love? Or the Inspector (Tom Calvey)?”
Last Wednesday, a young man at the back of the court had the temerity to drink from a bottle of Lucozade he’d brought with him to court. “This isn’t a cinema,” he was told quickly from the bench. No, but it can be as entertaining.