A 16-year-old youth who claimed he was a victim of mistaken identity and should not have been in jail was released on bail by the High Court yesterday. The court was told that the garda who could identify the person he summonsed for motoring offences was on his honeymoon.
Ms Caroline Butler, solicitor for the youth, said in an affidavit that the youth's father had told her this was not the first time his son had to come to court to clear his name.
On Thursday the court ordered the governor of Shanganagh prison to bring the youth to court yesterday to certify the grounds of his detention.
Mr Justice Butler granted the youth bail in his own surety of £3 and adjourned the proceedings to May 3rd.
Mr Vincent Heneghan, for the youth, said he had been put in Mountjoy on April 4th on foot of two warrants for non-payment of fines for driving without insurance and without a licence.
At all times the youth had protested he was not the person referred to in the warrants. Somebody else, it appeared, had given his name and an address almost similar to the address where the youth lived.
Mr Heneghan said the difficulty was that the garda who could identify the person fined for the motoring offences was on his honeymoon. This left the youth in a grave situation. The major difficulty was the "lack of gardai" to give evidence of identification.
Mr Giolla Phelan, for the State, said they had tried to trace two gardai who were involved but had not succeeded. The incident had occurred in August 1999 and came before the courts last June. When the fines were not paid, warrants had been issued. These were executed on April 4th.
The youth had raised the issue of mistaken identity with the governor of Shanganagh, who recommended that he see a solicitor. Since the gardai were not available, the State could not say he was the person involved and so it was a matter for the court. He suggested that the youth should be released on bail.
Mr Justice Butler said it seemed he had two options: to let the youth out on bail immediately, or to decide the matter, which might be unfair to the State.
Mr Heneghan asked for bail and an adjournment.