The High Court has reserved judgement in the case of seven water charge protesters facing jail or a fine if found to be found in contempt of court regarding the obstruction of water meter installation.
The court spent much of Monday listening to affidavits and viewing footage which meter installation company GMC Sierra Ltd says shows the six men and one woman breaching a court order.
The court was told that the seven Dubliners had previously been ordered not to go within 20 metres of contractors installing water meters and not to interfere with the entrance and exit of the company’s vehicles.
They are Damien O’Neill of Greenwood Park in Coolock; Paul Moore of Mount Olive Grove in Kilbarrack; Bernie Hughes of McKelvey Avenue, Finglas; Mark Egan of Tonlegee Drive, Raheny; Richard Larkin of Mount Olive Road, Kilbarrack; Michael Batty of Edenmore Avenue, Raheny; and Derek Byrne of Streamville Road, Donaghmede.
All were in court apart from Mr Batty who, the court was told, needed to be in a dry and sunny climate due to chronic asthma.
The High Court had, on November 5th, granted an order to GMC Sierra Ltd, establishing the 20-metre exclusion zone around locations where its workers were installing meters in Dublin City.
GMC, which had a contract to install meters, had already secured injunctions preventing a number of individuals or anyone who had notice of the order from assaulting, intimidating or interfering with workers installing the meters.
The company secured the orders after its lawyers told the High Court that its workers had been harassed and threatened while installing meters in certain areas.
GMC has now moved contempt of court proceedings against seven protesters on grounds that they allegedly breached the November 5th order in the Phibsborough and Stoneybatter areas in December.
Jim O’Callaghan SC, for GMC Sierra, read into the record affidavits of a number of people engaged by the company to carry out surveillance on protests.
Three of these evidence-gathering operatives also provided video footage, which was played in court. They alleged that they had seen all of the seven people within the 20-metre exclusion zones and had seen a number of them remove safety barriers and interfere with workers.
Dozens of supporters of the seven people were in court 21 of the Criminal Courts of Justice to watch the proceedings, which were also watched by several gardaí. A number of these supporters laughed as certain parts the affidavits were read and corresponding footage was shown.
The three operatives, along with two agents from another company, were called to the witness box to be cross examined by Patrick McGrath SC, who was representing all seven people.
Eoin Corrigan of First Pulse Ltd had asserted in his affidavit that, on one occasion, he had witnessed Mr O’Neill pushing and pulling workers in a threatening manner and stamping on a pipe, causing a leak.
He said that, another time, he had seen Ms Hughes follow a worker to a vehicle, the worker had tried to close the door, but Ms Hughes had become irate and punched him in the torso.
He agreed with Mr McGrath that there was no footage of these events, explaining that it was not feasible to have 24-hour video surveillance on everything that was happening.
The court was also shown a video and photographs from the Edenmore Says No Facebook page, which accompanied the affidavit of GMC Sierra’s operations manager, Niall Corrigan.
Mr Corrigan had said that a video from the page showed Ms Hughes and Mr O’Neill backfilling meter excavations.
Mr Corrigan alleged that a photograph from the page showed Mr O’Neill grabbing a shovel from a worker. He said another photograph showed two other men stop a van and one of them put his foot on concrete that was about to be cut.
His colleague, Charles Rice, said that one protester had told a worker: “I’ll put you on your back.”
Mr O'Callaghan suggested to Mr Justice Paul Gilligan that the plaintiff had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
He noted that the court had previously imposed 28-day sentences on Mr Moore and Mr O’Neill for a similar breach, but had suspended the sentences for six months.
Mr McGrath said that it should trouble the court that none of the witnesses knew any of his clients before the case and could identify them in the footage only by someone else pointing out who they were.
However, he said that if the court was satisfied that they were the people named in question, then it was difficult to say there was not a breach of the court order.
Mr Justice Gilligan will give his decision this Thursday morning.