A charge against a garda that he stole 15,000 seized cigarettes has been struck out by Judge Donagh McDonagh after the State entered a nolle prosequi at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Denis Grehan (47), Church Park Lawn, Harold's Cross, Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to dishonestly appropriating the cigarettes at Dublin Castle on May 4th, 2003.
Mr Grehan's trial on the charge was scheduled to begin yesterday when prosecuting counsel Paul Coffey announced that the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed that he enter a nolle prosequi in respect of the charges.
Judge McDonagh discharged Mr Grehan from the charge on the application of defence counsel Caroline Cummings and Patrick Gageby.
Judge McDonagh then discharged the jurors, telling them the trial was not going to continue as "obviously something has happened since yesterday" and thanked them for their service.
Judge Michael White was told when he swore in the jury for the scheduled trial that Mr Grehan was a garda who has been with the drugs squad for 20 years.
Following an earlier hearing, Judge White had ruled that it was in the balance of "public-interest privilege" not to disclose information to the defence as to the source of information used by gardaí as to the likelihood that the cigarettes were to be stolen.
Judge White said in his ruling that the defence also had not proved that this information would assist its case on behalf of Mr Grehan.
He said in his ruling on this issue that "the proper public administration of justice and the rights of the gardaí not to disclose any information which may impinge upon the methodology used to detect and investigate crime" fell on the side of the court not directing disclosure of the information held by Supt Noreen O'Sullivan.
The court was told during that hearing that the 15,000 cigarettes were from a consignment of 1.6 million held originally in Co Offaly under the care of Det Sgt Martin Baxter. The cigarettes were first transported in July 2003 from Offaly to a warehouse in Santry and were then transferred to Dublin Castle.
The batch had been seized by gardaí in relation to another case.