Facebook ban for court case commentary

JUDGE WARNS CASE PARTIES NOT TO DISCUSS IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

A strong warning about social media coverage of a court case and its background has been issued by Judge Flann Brennan after it was revealed that a video, taking during an alleged assault, was posted on a Facebook page but not handed over to Gardai.

The judge will give his decision in the case on December 14 after hearing evidence from the alleged victim and the defendant - David Lavery, (33), 30 Mullaharlin Park - who denied a charge of assault at Tesco Extra on August 30 2015.

Judge Brennan heard how the injured party, his wife and children had been at the store that afternoon and had seen Lavery and his family were also in the shop. The alleged victim said he and his family, including his five year old son who has autism, waited for up to seven minutes after Lavery left and then went downstairs towards the underground car park.

He claimed he was holding his autistic son’s hand when he went out the door, but CCTV from the store showed this was not the case. He said Lavery was waiting for him right outside the door and attacked him straight away, swinging him ‘around like a rag doll’. During the incident, the alleged victim’s autistic son grabbed hold of his father’s leg and ended up on the ground.

The alleged victim said his girlfriend and their other child arrived seconds after the incident started and she took out her mobile phone, telling Lavery she was going to film the events in an effort to stop him. The altercation continued, and Lavery walked away after the incident, CCTV showed.

The alleged victim said the background to the incident was rooted in a conflict between his girlfriend’s niece and the defendant’s child. There was contact between his girlfriend and Lavery’s wife about the children and the alleged victim denied defence barrister Irene Sands’s suggestion that they had threatened them during a phone call.

When he claimed that he is a quiet chap, Ms Sands put it to him that he has a conviction for burglary and robbery, but the complainant replied that he hasn’t been in court for over five years and he had been diagnosed with a heart condition.

He claimed the accused was strangling him - and denied that he’d tried to grab Lavery between the legs.

The alleged victim’s girlfriend denied Ms Sands’s assertion her partner had started the incident, but she admitted uploading footage she’d filmed of the incident on Facebook, along with comments about the Laverys. Gardai said they had requested the footage from her phone, but it had not been supplied to them.

In evidence, the defendant said that he had gone back to the door of Tesco to wait on the alleged victim to come out as he wanted to asked him to back off with the phonecalls. His wife was in the car with their child and didn’t see the incident.

He said the complainant started swinging at him and he restrained him, before he just walked away at the end. He admitted under cross examination that he ‘probably shouldn’t have approached’ the alleged injured party.

Judge Brennan said he needed time to consider the evidence and adjourned the case to December 14th and warned all if the parties involved there should be no contact between them on phones or on social media - and there should be no commentary about the case on social media ‘ particularly after being in court’.