Court quashes assault conviction where street and station events were one transaction, preventing shield dropping.
Ireland (IE)
Legislator summary
AI generatedThe Court of Appeal quashed the appellant's conviction for assault, ruling that the trial judge erred in permitting cross-examination on prior convictions. The court found the street altercation and subsequent allegations made in the Garda station were a single, closely linked transaction. Consequently, the appellant had not 'thrown away his shield' under the Criminal Justice (Evidence) Act 1924, invalidating the prosecution's grounds for questioning.
Legislator headnote
AI generateds. 1 Criminal Justice (Evidence) Act 1924; where street and station events form a single transaction, the accused has not thrown away their shield and cross-examination on prior convictions is impermissible.
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THE COURT OF APPEAL
The President
Birmingham J.
Sheehan J.
7/13
The People at the Suit of the Director of Public Prosecutions
Respondent
V
Barry Ring
Appellant
Judgment of the Court (ex tempore) delivered on the 4th day of March 2015 by Mr. Justice Birmingham
1. This appeal raises questions about how s. 1 of the Criminal Justice (Evidence) Act 1924 is to operate and it brings into focus the
celebrated DPP v McGrail [1990] case. It does so in circumstances where Mr. Ring was convicted on the 11th December, 2012, on one
count of a s. 3 assault. The allegation against him was that he had assaulted a member of An Garda Siochána, Garda Cullinane at
Patrick Street, Tullamore.
2. After an incident on the street, the appellant was arrested and brought to the local garda station and in the course of a number of
interviews, three in particular, he made allegations against the gardaí. The allegations included punching, kicking, standing on him and
seeking to strangle him. The allegations really related not just what happened on the street but also as he contended, to what
happened to him in the garda station. The contents of the interviews were introduced by the prosecution as part of the prosecution
case, though in a redacted form and then the accused following the conclusion of the prosecution case, went into evidence and
broadly speaking, he gave evidence along the same lines as what he had had to say in the garda station.
3. At that stage the prosecution sought leave to cross examine him in relation to previous convictions. The contended that he had
dropped his shield in terms of the 1924 Act. Really, it is accepted by the parties to day that the key issue between them is whether
what happened in Patrick Street, Tullamore, is separate and distinct from the allegations made in relation to the garda station or
whether what happened on the street and what is alleged to have happened in the garda station are to be seen as one transaction.
4. It is the court’s view that in the particular circumstances of this case that the two matters were very closely linked. They were
geographically close, they were close in time and the contention on behalf of the appellant that the two events really formed part of
a single transaction is well founded. It was his case that he had not been the aggressor in this incident, but rather the aggression
had been coming from the garda side and that was a defence he was entitled to put, whether it would ever have found favour with
the jury is neither here nor there.
5. It is the court’s view that the events were so closely linked that it cannot be said that he had thrown away his shield and in those
circumstances, the court takes the view that the trial judge was wrong to permit the cross examination and accordingly the court will
quash the conviction.