A JURY last night found former Clare GP Paschal Carmody not guilty on six charges of obtaining money by deception from terminally ill cancer patients and failed to reach a verdict on the remaining 11 charges.
After 6-and-a-half hours of deliberating, the foreman of the 11-member jury at Ennis Circuit Court told the court yesterday that they found Mr Carmody not guilty in relation to six charges and could not agree a verdict in respect of 11 other charges.
Judge Rory McCabe had already directed the jury to return a not guilty verdict in relation to eight charges.
The case where Mr Carmody (60) of Ballycuggeran, Killaloe,denies obtaining money by falsely pretending that he would cure six terminally ill cancer patients through Photodynamic Therapy treatment has been adjourned to the court for mention on September 29th.
The outstanding 11 charges relate to a total of €30,854 obtained from three patients at the East Clinic in Killaloe in 2001-02.
In total, Mr Carmody was cleared yesterday of obtaining by deception €10,736 from the late JJ Gallagher and John Sheridan of Kells, Co Kilkenny, while the jury could not agree on any of the charges relating to the late Wexford teenager, Conor O'Sullivan.
Individually, Mr Carmody was cleared of obtaining by deception €1,286 from JJ Gallagher and the jury could not agree on two further charges relating to €14,300.
Mr Carmody was cleared of obtaining €9,450 by deception from John Sheridan while the jury could not agree on two charges relating to €6,944.
The jury could not agree on any of the seven deception charges totalling €9,610 in relation the late Conor O'Sullivan. The jury had stayed overnight at an Ennis hotel on Wednesday night and resumed their deliberations at 10.40am yesterday. At 5.25pm yesterday, the foreman of the jury told Judge Rory McCabe that in relation to 11 charges "we have discussed it at length and there is no prospect of us agreeing a verdict on those charges".
The court registrar then read out the verdicts on each of the 17 counts put to the jury.
Prior to lunch, the foreman told Judge McCabe: "We are not going to agree on everything. Will you accept a majority verdict?"
At 3.45, Judge McCabe directed that the jury could reach a 10-1 majority verdict in relation to some of the charges after the foreman told that the court that the jury had reached a unanimous verdict in relation to some of the charges and not on others.
At 4.45, Judge McCabe called out the jury and the foreman told the court that they still could not agree a majority verdict on a number of charges.
Judge McCabe directed that they could disagree on the charges where there was no prospect of reaching a decision. The investigation into the complaints dates back to July 2004, and during the four-week-long trial 49 witnesses gave evidence on behalf of the State, while 15 defence witnesses, including Mr Carmody, gave evidence.
