Four men spent 2½ hours in custody yesterday after a mobile phone rang during a sitting of the Magistrate’s Court in Derry.
Shortly before 10.45am the phone rang and Judge Barney McElholm warned that if another mobile phone rang, its owner would be “in contempt of court”.
Four men in the public gallery of the Bishop Street courthouse were seen to snigger. He immediately ordered prison staff to “take them down to the cells”.
As they were taken into temporary custody, they were warned by the district judge that “the longer it takes you to get down to the cells, the longer you will be there”.
At 1.15pm the four were brought up and placed in the dock before Judge McElholm.
“They were not detained because the phone rang,” he said, “but because these gentlemen seemed to take mirth out of my comments.”