A JUDGE at the Special Criminal Court yesterday said he would make no order after a Dublin man remanded on firearms charges by Judge Dominic Lynch failed to turn up in court.
Mr Colm Peake (34), with an address at Fitzgibbon Street, Dublin, had been charged at Dublin District Court with having a Browning 9mm pistol, a Browning 9mm magazine and 10 9mm rounds of ammunition on November 2nd 1995, at Beaumont Hospital Dublin.
The case was subsequently returned to the Special Criminal Court from the District Court. Mr Peake was granted bail.
In court yesterday Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for Mr Peake, said his client did not appear to be in court.
Mr Justice Morris, presiding, directed that Mr Peake be called within the court environs. A garda did so but Mr Peake did not appear.
Mr MacEntee said his client's case had been diverted to the Special Criminal Court from the District Court and was subsequently adjourned by a bench on which Judge Dominic Lynch was sitting after his retirement from the Special Criminal Court had been directed by the Government.
He said that in those circumstances, the court could make no order on foot of his client not turning up.
Mr Gregory Murphy SC, prosecuting, said it had been the State's intention to arrest Mr Peake under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act had he turned up for the hearing and have him charged. However, Mr Peake had not turned up and the State was not objecting to the defence's application for no order to be made.
Mr Justice Morris said habeas corpus applications relating to other cases in which Judge Lynch had made orders were continuing. It would be inappropriate for the Special Criminal Court to make an order on any assumption of the outcome of those proceedings.