A round-up of today's other court news in brief ...
SF candidate loses case against O’Dea
Sinn Féin local election candidate Maurice Quinlivan has failed to secure a High Court order restraining Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea from making comments allegedly linking Mr Quinlivan to an apartment that was used as a brothel. The injunction was sought pending the outcome of defamation proceedings against the Minister.
Limerick city-based Mr Quinlivan (42) claims he was defamed by Mr O’Dea and his prospects of being elected next June were damaged as a result of comments made by him in an interview with the Limerick Chronicle newspaper on March 10th. He claimed the comments linked him to an apartment being used by others as a brothel.
The Minister has denied the claims.
Yesterday, Mr Justice John Cooke said he would not grant Mr Quinlivan an injunction restraining the Minister pending the determination of the full defamation action. The court did not want to interfere with the freedom of speech during an election campaign, the judge said.
Refusing the injunctions, Mr Justice Cooke said Mr Quinlivan had failed to make out a fair issue to be tried as there was a clear doubt it had been said that Maurice Quinlivan was the co-owner of the apartment.
Woman’s lung pierced in hospital
A verdict of medical misadventure has been returned at the inquest into the death of an elderly woman in hospital.
Isobel Walton (79) died four days after she experienced acute bleeding following a medical procedure to insert a drain into one of her lungs.
Ms Walton, Knocksedan, Swords, Co Dublin, suffered bleeding from her lung (a pulmonary haemorrhage) at Beaumont Hospital on May 23rd, 2008, a short time after doctors inserted a drain to remove fluid from her left lung, Dublin City Coroner’s Court heard yesterday.
The haemorrhage caused Ms Walton to have a heart attack.
She was resuscitated but had already experienced irreversible damage to the brain cells and spinal cord due to lack of oxygen. She died at the hospital on May 27th.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell found that Ms Walton had died as a result of a complication of the procedure to insert the pleural drain. He recorded a verdict of medical misadventure due to a complication of the procedure.
Drug smuggling sentence adjourned
A South African woman who claimed she agreed to import €84,000 worth of cocaine to pay for medical treatment for her infant daughter has had her sentence adjourned at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Blanca Butzer (22), Durbanville, Cape Town, was caught coming through Customs at Dublin airport with a kilogram of cocaine. She pleaded guilty to possession of drugs for sale or supply on July 4th, 2008.
Judge Frank O’Donnell remanded Butzer in custody until May when he will finalise sentence.
Man jailed for twice raping boy
A 31-year-old unemployed man with “intellectual failings” has been jailed for nine years for twice raping a 13-year-old boy in a Dublin industrial estate container.
A jury at the Central Criminal Court convicted the man of raping the boy on August 18th, 2007, after a five-day trial last February.
Mr Justice Barry White took into consideration the former newspaper seller’s “lowest per cent intelligence” and said he would not punish the man for “fighting his trial”, even though he had pleaded not guilty to the two rape charges.
Garda Ronan Coffey told Paul Coffey SC, prosecuting, that the man had been in custody throughout the trial for another sexual assault committed while on bail for these offences.
Garda Coffey said the man handed cigarettes and beer to the boy and his teenage friends after approaching them on the industrial estate.