Varadkar comments could delay Jobstown trial, says lawyer

The intervention of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the debate about the Jobstown trial could delay a similar trial due to begin later this year, according to a leading criminal lawyer.

The Garda review initiated into matters linked to the Jobstown trial could also be used in an attempt to delay the trial, he said.

There are a further 11 people facing jury trials on charges arising from the 2014 water charges protest in Jobstown, a fact that was known at the time of the Taoiseach’s comments last Thursday.

One of the State’s top criminal lawyers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he believed Mr Varadkar’s comments would have been ill-advised even if a trial was not pending.

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He said that in the context of a pending trial, they were even more ill-advised and were likely to be of use to the accused. The lawyer, who is not representing any of the parties before the courts, said that, if he was, he would use Mr Varadkar’s comments as part of an application that the trial be adjourned to next year, and that if his application was rejected he would appeal the decision to the High Court.

In his comments, Mr Varadkar referred to Garda evidence not being in line with video evidence and suggested that the Garda Commissioner, Nóirín O’Sullivan, review the matter.

The Garda then issued a statement saying it had already initiated a review into certain aspects of the “the policing response and the subsequent investigation into the incident” at Jobstown. It did not say it was investigating the Garda testimony to the trial, which ended on June 29th.

Discovery order

The lawyer said he expected that the legal teams representing the accused in the pending trial would be successful if they applied for discovery of the Garda review, and any associated documentation.

“I would be seriously talking about seeking to adjourn the trial. That’s the first thing I would think about. There has been so much publicity and there is the fact that Leo Varadkar has intervened, and the fact that there is a Garda review,” he said.

The purpose of the delay would be to provide for a “fade factor” in the wake of all the publicity.

He said the last time a senior politician had interfered with a pending trial was in 2000 when the then tánaiste, Mary Harney, said she would like to see the former taoiseach, the late Charles Haughey, be convicted in a trial then pending. The trial never went ahead.

A spokesman for the Government said Mr Varadkar discussed the comments he made on RTÉ last week with the Attorney General, Séamus Woulfe, who confirmed the Taoiseach’s understanding that he was free to comment as the trial was over. The Attorney General’s advice was sought “when Fianna Fáil chose to make an issue of the matter”.

The Solidarity TD Paul Murphy and five other men were found not guilty of the false imprisonment of former Labour Party leader Joan Burton and her then assistant, Karen O'Connell, in November 2014 during a water charges protest in Jobstown.

Eleven other people are awaiting trials – in October 2017 and April 2018 – on a variety of charges arising from the same protest. The charges are false imprisonment, violent disorder and criminal damage, with not all accused facing all charges.

In its statement last week, the Garda said it had commenced a review the day after the Jobstown verdicts “into the policing response and the subsequent investigation into the incident that occurred at An Cosán, Kiltalawn, Tallaght, on 15th November, 2014, from a lessons-learned perspective”.

The review, by Assistant Commissioner Barry O’Brien, will look at “key learning points”, identification of organisational practices and policies that require improvement, training and “any other issues of note”.

During the trial, defence counsel were critical of the Garda response to the events at Jobstown, and claimed that the Garda investigation had targeted Mr Murphy.

Without any admission of liability, it was also suggested that public-order charges, which would have been tried in the District Court, would have been more appropriate than charges of false imprisonment.