A jury in the trial of a Galway City clerical worker who was charged with having pornographic images of children stored on his home computer, were directed by a Circuit Court judge yesterday to find the accused not guilty after he ruled certain evidence was inadmissible.
Mr Shane Gaughan (28), Ballybane, Galway, had denied 15 counts of being in possession of computer images of female children engaging in sexually explicit activity on various dates between 1999 and 2002, contrary to Section 6 (1) of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998.
Mr Martin Giblin, SC, defending, said the warrant used to search his client's house was defective, given a Supreme Court decision handed down recently in a totally separate case.
Following lengthy legal argument in the absence of the jury, Mr Giblin contended that that decision held that search warrants were defective if signed by a judge who was not within the jurisdiction where the alleged offence had taken place at the time of signing them, and that warrants should be signed by a judge while actually sitting on the bench in their own jurisdiction.
In the Mr Gaughan case, Mr Giblin contended that gardaí had travelled to Judge John Garavan's private residence in Castlebar and he had signed the search warrant authorising the search of Mr Gaughan's house in Galway city, which took place three days later. The warrant had been authorised outside District Court Area No.7, which was the jurisdiction in which the alleged offence occurred, he said.
Judge Harvey Kenny told the jury that in their absence legal submissions had been made and he was ruling that certain evidence was inadmissible and he directed them to find the accused not guilty. The Supreme Court ruling will affect Garda procedure, which in the past has often relied on judges to sign search warrants late at night in their own homes in relation to obtaining emergency search warrants.