Courthouses close to criminal cases

As the Bridewell on Chancery Street and the Special Criminal Court on Green Street close to criminal cases, thoughts turn to the trials prosecuted there and the people who took part

THIS WEEK DUBLIN District Court starts hearing criminal cases in the new Criminal Court Complex at Phoenix Park. On December 18th the Special Criminal Court hears its last criminal case, and next month will sit in the new building. This means that over the next two weeks the Bridewell courthouse on Chancery Street at the back of the Four Courts, and the Special Criminal Court on Green Street, will both close for criminal cases, bringing to an end two eras in Irish criminal justice, though the High Court will sit in them.

THE BRIDEWELL

Those who recall the District Court sitting in the Bridewell over the past four decades remember its Victorian grimness, enlivened by the colourful character of the judge who dominated it for some 30 years, Judge Bob O hUadhaigh. The courthouses date to the end of the 19th century, and have been used as district courts since the foundation of the State.

“It was a horrible place,” says Patrick MacEntee SC, recalling that prisoners were brought up into the court from a cellar under the courthouse. Many of those who worked there refer to the horror of the toilets.

Robert Sheehan, who started prosecuting there in 1980, says he was “in a state of shock” when he saw the court, having previously worked as a conveyancing solicitor. “It was very Victorian. It felt tawdry. The paint was peeling. It was in an acute state of dilapidation.” But, in contrast, those working there, from lawyers to members of the Garda, were of the highest standard. “It was a privilege to be dealing with lawyers like Pat McCartan, Ernie Hanahoe and Garrett Sheehan,” he says.

And then there were the judges. While many sat in these courthouses over the years, one colourful figure stands out and is mentioned over and over again – Judge Robert (Bob) O hUadhaigh. "He really was unique," says Robert Sheehan. It is he who featured most commonly in the column written by Nell McCafferty, In the Eyes of the Law, which ran in this newspaper from 1969 to 1977. Many of those who spent time in his court agreed that he "hammed it up" for the journalist.

“He was a humane man, and he knew his law. He was witty and sardonic. Basically he had a theatrical disposition,” says Sheehan. “He was not a dandy, but he had grey hair brylcreemed right back, he always wore a very well-cut suit, a crisp white shirt and a really good tie. He stood out in that environment. He used to comment on a frequent basis throughout the proceedings. But it was not the proprietorial kind of comments you get from a lot of judges, like, ‘from now on in my court . . .’ ”

Solicitor Bobby Eager remembers one such comment. “Occasionally you’d hear roaring from the cells below from people waiting to be brought up. One day there was a lot of noise, and a couple of guards rushed down to assist the prison officers. O hUadhaigh leaned over from the bench to the solicitors and said, ‘the guards are taking a voluntary statement, gentlemen’.” Judge O hUadhaigh was wont to give a speech when giving the defendant the Probation Act (which was not registered as a conviction), according to Eager. “He would say, ‘a probation officer is a friend. Not like the friends you hang around with, a real friend’.”

Such was the colourful character of his court that it was always packed with visitors, legal tourists who had heard of the entertainment provided. “They were never disappointed,” says Sheehan, who speculates that the attention he got from the newspapers helped develop the theatrical aspect of his personality. He was not bound by procedure.

The present DPP, James Hamilton, recalls that on one occasion a German sailor was brought into court charged with a public order offence following a night on the town. He was asked to stand up, but did not move.

He describes what happened next: “Does he speak English?’ the judge enquired of the garda. ‘No, Justice,’ he replied. ‘Is there an interpreter?’ ‘No, Justice.’ ‘Does anyone here speak German?’ A hand went up at the back of the court. ‘Swear him in,’ demanded the judge, and the man was sworn in as an interpreter. ‘Ask him his name,’ Judge O hUadhaigh demanded of the ‘interpreter’. ‘Fatt iss your name?’ the ‘interpreter’, who had clearly watched too many war movies, asked the defendant in German-accented English.”

“On one occasion a respectable-looking middle-aged man appeared before him. The garda said he thought he should see a psychiatrist. The man responded normally to a series of questions from the judge, and Judge O hUadhaigh said, ‘This man is saner than me.’ ‘That may very well be,’ replied the garda, ‘but I suggest you ask him about O’Connell Street.’ The judge did, and the man went into a rant about panzer tanks in O’Connell Street and the country being occupied by the Germans,” Sheehan recalls.

Despite the many moments of light relief, the court was a sad place in many ways, he says. “There were so many people coming into court who were heroin addicts, good-looking young men on their way out with addiction. You would see people injecting in the environs of the court. We witnessed the start of organised crime in Ireland there. We prosecuted the Dunne family, who were not drug-users themselves, but who brought the organised crime element into drug supply in Dublin.”

The court has been a less colourful place since Judge O hUadhaigh’s retirement in 1995, closely followed by the refurbishment of the building, so that it was less grim. Methadone maintenance programmes reduced the incidence of addicts injecting themselves outside the court. Neither the grimness nor the colour are likely to be features of the new Criminal Court Complex.

GREEN STREET

Green Street courthouse has a particularly long history. Opened in January 1797, it is one of only two courts in the country with a dock for the accused, and it was used as a sessions house. Robert Emmet was tried there and ordered to be executed, and the dock in which he stood is still in use.

The debtors’ prison, built in 1794, was in the same street as the court and was often home to “gentlemen” who owed money. The future Duke of Wellington was among those imprisoned there until their debts were paid.

The Special Criminal Court, which sits with three judges rather than a judge and jury, has been housed in Green Street since 1972, and has been the scene for all the major terrorist-related trials of the IRA campaign of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In 1976 two men escaped when a side wall of the court was blown up. They were later arrested and convicted of the possession of mortars and explosives.

Among the many high-profile trials conducted there were two trials of the men accused of the Sallins train robbery in 1976. During the first trial of Nicky Kelly and his two co-accused his lawyers sought to draw the attention of the court to the fact that one of the judges appeared asleep. The court ruled that he was awake and alert, and this finding was upheld by the Supreme Court. Only the death of the judge in mid-trial ended this trial.

In the new trial Kelly and two co-accused were convicted on the basis of false confessions that were beaten out of them. The court explained their obvious injuries by saying that they must have beaten themselves up or beaten each other up. The convictions of Osgur Breathnach and Brian McNally were overturned on appeal in 1980 after the Provisional IRA had admitted it had carried out the robbery and said Kelly and the others were innocent. Kelly did not appeal as he had fled the jurisdiction and was later released on humanitarian grounds.

In recent years certain high profile “ordinary” crime has been tried in the Special Criminal Court, including the trials of those accused of the murder of Veronica Guerin.

Although its stand-alone character makes the building amenable to high security protection and it is therefore seen as a high-security courthouse, it also houses the reform directorate of the Courts Service. According to a spokesman for the Courts Service, it is hoped that in the future it will be used as a site for a legal history museum.