The High Court has launched an inquiry into the behaviour of a judge alleged to have shown bias against a man who was given a maximum jail sentence.
Mark Walsh, from Co Tipperary, claimed in the High Court yesterday that District Court Judge Mary Martin had accused him of telling lies about her in the High Court last February.
Michael O'Higgins SC told Mr Justice Philip O'Sullivan yesterday that Walsh's dealings with Judge Martin began in Roscrea District Court in February this year when he had inadvertently taken a mobile phone photograph of the back of another man's head in the courtroom.
Mr O'Higgins, who appeared for Walsh, said a member of the Garda Síochána had reported the phone camera incident to Judge Martin, who had committed Mr Walsh to prison for contempt of court. He said a constitutional challenge to Walsh's imprisonment for contempt had been taken in the High Court a few days later and he had been set free.
Mr O'Higgins said Walsh then came before Judge Martin in Roscrea District Court on Thursday, July 27th last, on three charges of having stolen a handbag, a chainsaw and groceries worth €36.26.
He said Judge Martin had told Walsh: "You are the man who went to the High Court in
Dublin and told a lot of lies about me."
Walsh and his partner had taken issue with this and had told the judge his usual solicitor was not present in court and had sought an adjournment.
Mr O'Higgins said it would be claimed that Judge Martin had directed that Walsh's case would go ahead and she had obtained the services from the body of the court of another solicitor who had then acted for Walsh.
Walsh had pleaded guilty and had been sentenced to a maximum two years - six months imprisonment for having stolen the handbag; the maximum six months relating to the theft of the chainsaw and the maximum 12 months relating to the groceries, all sentences to run consecutively.
Caroline Butler, Walsh's solicitor, stated in an affidavit that it was her belief that Walsh was unlawfully in custody because of the conduct of Judge Martin in having accused him of having lied in separate High Court proceedings.
She said the earlier High Court proceedings had impugned the conduct of Judge Martin before the July 27th sentencing, and her remarks would reasonably have given rise in the mind of an unprejudiced observer to the suspicion that justice was not being done.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan directed that Walsh be taken from Limerick Prison to the High Court in Dublin this morning for the purpose of completing his inquiries into the legality of his imprisonment.