The High Court has been asked to decide if the circumstances of the alleged sale of a packet of cigarettes to a teenage girl constitute entrapment. The girl was acting voluntarily for a health board official involved in spot checks to see if tobacco was being sold to underage minors.
Mr Justice Roderick Murphy yesterday reserved judgment on a number of legal issues referred for determination to the High Court by a District Court judge dealing with the matter.
The issues arose in a prosecution brought by Caitríona Syron, an officer of the North Western Health Board and operating on behalf of the Minister for Health under the Tobacco Act, against Yolanda Hewitt, the owner of Gilmore's Gala Foodstore, Abbey Terrace, Ballymote, Co Sligo, and Olive McTiernan, the person who allegedly sold cigarettes to the teenager in that shop.
Defence lawyers had argued, among other submissions, that the circumstances of the purchase constituted entrapment and that the evidence procured was inadmissible.
The health board said that it had been following a procedure whereby an underage volunteer tried to buy tobacco products. This procedure was aimed at enforcing the legislation that governs the sale of tobacco to under-18s.
After the case came before District Judge Oliver McGuinness at Ballymote District Court in January 2004, he referred a number of issues to the High Court .
The District Court was told that, in July 2003, a 14-year-old girl volunteer for the health board asked for and was sold a packet of cigarettes in the shop in Ballymote, without being asked her age.
Ms Syron, who had earlier entered the shop and behaved like a regular customer, observed the incident.
The girl was instructed to give her correct age if asked, the court was told. She denied she was wearing make-up.
Ms Hewitt, who was on holidays at the time of the incident, told the District Court she was aware of the regulations governing the sale of tobacco and had taken steps to remind her staff what they were. She accepted that the teenager should have been challenged, but felt that it was very difficult to determine the age of some girls.
Thirty other shops in the area were visited that day for the same purpose and 20 prosecutions had followed.