Gogarty says he will not apologise

The chief witness at the Flood Tribunal, Mr James Gogarty, who has claimed Mr Joe Murphy jnr was convicted of assaulting a woman, refused to apologise when told yesterday this was untrue.

Responding to Mr Garrett Cooney SC, Mr Gogarty refused to accept that Mr Murphy jnr was not guilty of an offence in the Berkeley Court Hotel in 1989.

"Frank Reynolds in Santry showed me a copy of the Evening Press I think it was . . . and my recollection is this, that it said he was described as an emigrant Irish labourer over here for a couple of days for a rugby match and that he went over the top with a bit of drink and he did some damage there on a girl, her dress and all that type of thing," he said.

Mr Gogarty said Mr Murphy's reported undertaking to put a £100 fine in the poor box was "a fine no matter what you call it".

Mr Justice Flood interrupted to say he understood "there was an incident; while it may not have been desirable, it was one which can occur on such occasions, and it was something which was socially unacceptable but no more or less than that".

Mr Cooney claimed Mr Gogarty had concocted "an entirely false charge, fabricated to embarrass and defame my client".

Mr Justice Flood said the case was one of "using threatening or abusive language and behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace".

Mr Cooney said the "judge without proceeding to conviction found the facts proved and dismissed the charge pursuant to the Probation Act", and said a malicious damage charge of wilfully damaging a mink coat had been treated in a similar fashion by the judge.

Mr Cooney, having first asked Mr Gogarty to read out the order in which it was stated that the charges were dismissed without conviction, then said: "Mr Gogarty, you publicly charged this man with an assault on a woman, which is a very serious matter and one which would probably generate ignominy in the community.

"Listen to me please, in fairness now it is abundantly clear from these documents that Mr Murphy was charged with a very, very minor offence and the charge was dismissed under the Probation Act, and that is a much less serious matter, a trivial matter compared to the allegation you made against him."

Mr Cooney then said that if Mr Gogarty was a gentleman "which you claim to be, you would in fairness withdraw the charge and apologise".

After some preamble Mr Gogarty said: "First of all - he can sue me. First of all, I didn't charge him, you said I charged him. I didn't charge him."

Mr Cooney: "You know well I didn't say that."

Mr Gogarty: "You did, you said that, it is in the transcript."

Mr Cooney: "Or I didn't mean that, Mr Gogarty."

Mr Gogarty: "Either say what you mean or shut up."