A roundup of today's other court stories in brief
Not guilty on child assault, cruelty charges
A man accused of assaulting three children and of cruelty towards them has been found not guilty by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Wayne White (33), Scarlet Avenue, Drogheda, had denied five charges of assaulting the children causing them harm and three charges of cruelty while having care of them at a Dublin city centre address between September and December 2003.
Mr White was living with the three children, who are now aged nine, 10 and 13, as their mother's boyfriend.
The jury returned not guilty verdicts on five of the charges on day three of the trial and went to a hotel overnight before acquitting Mr White of the remaining three counts yesterday.
Armagh couple on cruelty charges
A woman who pleaded guilty mid-trial to cruelty against seven children told Antrim Crown Court sitting in Coleraine yesterday she was too drugged to understand what she was admitting.
She denied attempting to reverse her plea in an attempt to save her partner, who is also accused of running a regime of shocking brutality, claiming the confession was made because she felt under pressure from her lawyers.
The woman also refused to accept the ill-treatment stretching back nearly 15 years led to one of the children committing suicide.
She claimed that the death was a tragic accident.
The couple, from Co Armagh, cannot be named to protect the identities of their alleged victims.
As the jury heard details of two attempts by the woman to change her guilty plea, Mr Adair put it to her that Mr Justice Girvan had ruled that it was a voluntary admission.The couple went on trial last month, each accused of 16 counts of child cruelty, but midway through the case the woman admitted her part in the ill- treatment and was convicted by the jury.
Details of her signed confession were read out in court, but the woman insisted she had not fully understood it because of the drugs. She agreed with her partner, who told the trial earlier that there was a conspiracy against them, with others influencing the children against them.
The children were systematically kicked, punched and whipped with a rubber hosepipe, the prosecution has claimed. She claimed any discipline was left to her and amounted to nothing more severe than a light smack on the behind.
Rape jury assures judge on media
The jury in the Central Criminal Court trial of a man charged with raping his partner's daughter has told Mr Justice Paul Carney that it has not been influenced in any way by recent media reports.
Mr Justice Carney had asked the jury on day five of the hearing if it had been influenced by media coverage of other events and if it could deal with the case in Cloverhill Court "exclusively on the evidence you hear in court and the legal directions given by the judge".
He told the six men and six women that he had the power to sequester them "without access to radio, television or newspapers".
The 37-year-old accused has pleaded not guilty to oral rape in 1998, rape in 2001 and nine charges of indecently assaulting the now 21-year-old woman from 1993 to 1998.
Man (23) denies sexual assault
An 11-year-old girl has claimed that her older sister's boyfriend sexually assaulted her and said she would be put in a home if she told anyone.
The Westmeath man (23) has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to two charges of rape, two of oral rape and four counts of sexually assaulting a then seven- to eight-year-old complainant from January 1st, 2002, to May 31st, 2003.
Giving evidence via video-link, the girl said the accused often spent nights in her home and would stay in her brother's bedroom.
She alleged he asked her to come into the bedroom to show her something on a PlayStation game. He started to take off her clothing and put her on to a bed where she alleged he sexually assaulted her.
Belfast republican fined £200
Leading Belfast republican Bobby Storey was fined £200 yesterday for obstructing police during an incident outside West Belfast Social Club over a year ago.
Charges of assaulting a policeman and disorderly behaviour were dismissed.
Storey (49), South Link, Andersonstown, denied the charges. During the hearing at Belfast Magistrates Court, he insisted that he had been trying to defuse a volatile situation involving police and a hostile crowd.
Resident magistrate Mandy Henderson said she was not convinced by the evidence of the principal police witness on the allegation of assault but she found Storey guilty of obstructing the police, even though she accepted that he was there in a peacekeeping role.
A number of international observers said they thought Storey should have been cleared because the evidence did not justify a conviction.