THE arrest yesterday morning of a Dublin man, Mr David Murphy, suspected by gardai of having participated in the murder of his wife, Patricia, on May 27th - 28th was legal, the High Court held last night.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly conducted a three-hour inquiry into the constitutionality of Mr Murphy's arrest for a second time since his wife's body was found behind a skip off Griffith Avenue, Dublin, and he held that the gardai had not breached Mr Murphy's constitutional rights.
He rejected pleas by Mr Murphy and his legal team, led by Ms Mary Ellen Ring, that the arrest at his new home at 52 Goldsmith Street, Phibsboro, Dublin, at 8:15 a.m. had not been in compliance with Section 10 of the Criminal Justice Act of 1984.
It was outlined in court that Section 10 stipulates a suspect cannot be arrested a second time other than by order of a judge of the District Court, who must be satisfied that new information has come to the knowledge of the gardai that the information came to them since the suspect's previous release from custody and that it relates to his suspected participation in relation to the offence for which the arrest is sought.
Mr Justice Kelly held that the application to the District Court on August 29th for an order allowing gardai to re-arrest Mr Murphy had been properly presented to and granted by the District Court judge and he held in favour of the gardai on all three points relating to the new information.
He also rejected as unfounded legal contentions that the new information was insufficient to potentially incriminate Mr Murphy or that the application to the District Court had been made for non-bona fide purposes in the proper investigation of Patricia Murphy's murder.
Mr Justice Kelly heard that Det Supt Denis Donegan was heading the investigation into the murder and that he had informed the District Court of new information from two witnesses who had made statements since Mr Murphy's initial arrest.
Del Supt Donegan had stated in his District Court deposition that Mr Murphy was arrested at 11.10 am on June 6th on suspicion of having committed an offence to which Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act applied, namely the murder of Patricia Murphy, contrary to common law.
He had been detained at Santry Garda Station and at 11.10 pm on the same date he was released without any charge made against him. Del Supt Donegan said that on June 6th, 27th and 29th a
Keogh had made statements, in the second of which she said that at 11 p.m. on May 27th she had been visiting a friend at No 433 Griffith Avenue and saw a man coming out of The Rise, off Griffith Avenue. On June 27th she had picked a photograph of Mr Murphy out of an album of 12 photographs as the man she had seen.
The court later heard that the spot where she had allegedly seen Mr Murphy was close to the area where Patricia Murphy's body was found the following day.
Det Supt Donegan had also stated in his District Court evidence that on July 19th another witness, Mr Fergus Darcy, the landlord of No 388 Griffith Avenue which had been rented to the Murphys, made a statement in which he said he had met Mr Murphy on June 29th about the rent.
In the course of a conversation Mr Darcy had stated that Mr Murphy said "you were accusing him of murdering Patricia and that you were putting him under a lot of pressure and that they would be waiting any time before he would crack.
Det Sgt Tom McCarrick told the court that the Garda had suspected Mr Murphy of murdering his wife because a bag of clothes had been found in the Tolka River identified as being belonging to the murdered woman and to Mr Murphy.
A witness had seen a mean discard the white plastic bag into the river between midnight and 12.10 a.m. on May 28th.
Mr Murphy also failed to account for his movements at around 4.30 a.m. on May 28th, although two witnesses claimed they saw him about 100 yards from where his wife's body was found.
Det Sgt McCarrick said when he interviewed Mr Murphy at Whitehall Garda station yesterday morning about his conversation with Mr Darcy, Mr Murphy said "so what if I did".
In his judgment Mr Justice Peter Kelly said he had to recount the sad history of Mr Murphy's wife having been killed.
He was quite satisfied that Ms Keogh had first identified Mr Murphy from photographs on June 27th and that this was a piece of new information which justified and probably compelled an application to the District Court.
"It is true to say that the second piece of evidence before the District judge is less compelling but nonetheless it does appear to be new," he said.
"The combination of the two pieces of information in my view amply justified the swearing of the information by Del Supt Donegan and equally amply justified the District judge in making the order he did."
Mr Justice Kelly's judgment ended at 8:30 last night, 15 minutes after the expiry of a six-hour extension of Murphy's earlier detention yesterday and Judge Kelly held he had no jurisdiction to "stop the clock" as and from the time the legality of that detention was challenged. Murphy was, accordingly, no longer under detention and free to go home.