A Dublin man walked free yesterday after the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned his conviction for abducting and assaulting an American woman in 1999.
The appeal court directed there should be no retrial.Mr Barry Fitzgerald (33), formerly of Wolverton Glen, Dalkey, and with an address at Martello Road, Sandycove, was convicted by a jury in November 2001 and freed on bail the following month pending his appeal.
Yesterday, the three-judge court allowed his appeal against conviction on grounds relating to the refusal to allow the defence time to make certain inquiries about the alleged victim which, the defence argued, were relevant to her credibility.
After quashing the conviction, Ms Justice McGuinness, presiding, said it appeared there was no great purpose in ordering a retrial.
It would be unsatisfactory and unfair to Mr Fitzgerald after all the time that had elapsed. Mr Fitzgerald had spent 2½ months in jail.
At the trial in the Central Criminal Court in November 2001, Ms Elizabeth Galluci, from Boston, told a jury that she and and Mr Fitzgerald met in a pub in Temple Bar and went to a club.
He offered her a lift homewards but instead drove her to his home in Dalkey, she said. He then said he would drive her home, but he took what she called an "insane" route through the Dublin mountains.
In the appeal it was argued that, subsequent to Mr Fitzgerald's conviction, information relating to Ms Galluci's marital history and other matters had come to light.
That information might have been employed at the trial to advance the defence case or undermine the prosecution case, it was submitted.