Judge questions wisdom of taking trials out of Dublin

COMMENTS Justice Tony Hunt.

A SENIOR judge has questioned the wisdom of holding trials in the Central Criminal Court in the county where the allegation was committed due to problems selecting a jury.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt made the comments during a trial of a Mayo man accused of rape in the Central Criminal Court which was held in Castlebar Courthouse. The Central Criminal Court hears the most serious of trials and normally sits in the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin but on occasions are brought to provincial locations like Castlebar.
The selection process of a jury for the trial in Castlebar was protracted because a number of prospective jurors knew people involved in the case.
When the 12 jurors were eventually empanelled, it was quickly reduced to eleven when the foreman informed Judge Hunt that his boss had the same surname as the accused. When enquiries were made, the foreman discovered that his boss and the accused were related and he would not feel comfortable being on the jury.

New foreman
As a result a new foreman had to be chosen by the jury. On the morning of the second day of evidence, one of the jurors informed Judge Hunt that she had met one of the accused man’s siblings when living in England. She said he was married to a friend of hers and only met him on a few occasions, and did not realise the accused was a brother until details of the family were revealed during the trial.
When asked if this would be problem for her, she replied it would not and there was no objections to her staying on the jury.
This prompted Judge Hunt to ask the prosecution of the wisdom of hearing the case in Mayo instead of in Dublin.
“I wonder the wisdom of a trial like this being tried in the locality. It shows why cases are sent to Dublin to be tried in the Central [Criminal Court],” he said.
“My view is it is okay to do a Clare case in Galway … but to do a case so close to where the jury come from, particularly in a case as emotive as this. There is credit in the idea of taking the Central out on the road but there is good and sensible reasons why they are dealt with by Dublin juries,” he concluded.