More news in brief
The prosecution of a man charged with unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl aged between 15 and 17 years of age, and who disputes the legality of the 1935 law creating that offence, has been adjourned on consent to October.
The adjournment is to facilitate consideration of the Supreme Court judgment overturning the High Court's decision to free Mr A, who is serving a three-year sentence for having sex with a 12-year-old girl.
The High Court had freed Mr A after the Supreme Court, in the case of CC on May 23rd last, struck down as unconstitutional a provision of the 1935 Criminal Law Amendment Act, making it an automatic offence for a man to have sex with a girl under the age of 15.
Yesterday's case concerns a man who had earlier secured an injunction restraining his prosecution pending the outcome of the CC case. The man wants to bring a legal challenge to provisions of a 1935 Act making it an automatic crime to have sex with a girl aged between 15 and 17 years.
The man, aged in his 30s, was due to appear before the District Court next month and the High Court yesterday had been expected to hear submissions on whether a full interlocutory injunction should be granted in the case.
When the case was called before Mr Justice Frank Clarke, the man's counsel said the parties had agreed that the prosecution could be adjourned until next October. By then, the Supreme Court will have delivered its written judgment in the parallel proceedings of the Mr A case. Mr Justice Clarke discharged the earlier injunction and said the case could be mentioned later in the term.
Longer sentence for assault
A teenage girl who was involved in a vicious assault during which a woman's hair was set alight has had a two-year prison sentence increased to three years by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Martina O'Connor (18), of Birchview Heights, Tallaght, who has some 72 previous convictions, was described by the court as "clearly out of control".
The three-judge appeal court affirmed a two-year sentence imposed by the Circuit Court on two other women who also took part in the assault on Rhona Brady and who were on bail pending their appeals.
One of those women, Antoinette Geoghegan (18), has a young baby and is the child's sole carer. Geoghegan, Cushlawn Park, Tallaght and another co-accused, Jennifer Melia (26), Airlie Heights, Lucan had both appealed against the severity of their two-year sentences.
All three women had pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Ms Brady in O'Connell Street, Dublin on October 17th, 2003.
Ms Brady was on crutches when attacked. Her hair was set alight but extinguished and she was pulled to the ground by her hair. The DPP brought an appeal against the sentence handed down to O'Connor, on the basis it was unduly lenient.
Murder trial told of blood on post
A blood-stained fencing post was found near the body of a Brazilian man allegedly beaten-to-death by three fellow countrymen, a jury in the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.
Det Garda Eoin Conway was giving evidence on the first day of the trial of Jose Claudio Batista (30) and Alessandro De Almeida Mata (27), of Ruanbeg Close, Kildare, and Adriano Martins Costa (26), of no fixed abode, who deny murdering Paulo Cesar Siqueria (39) at Ruanbeg Close on June 4th, 2005.
Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, said the victim was attacked by a number of people in the early hours of June 4th and died at the scene as a result of the injuries sustained in the attack. The trial continues.