Miley and Biddy ‘appear’ in court

January 1987

GLENROE characters Miley and his wife Biddy gained further fame this week with the distinction of being shown on video at Wicklow District Court.

Part of an episode of the Glenroe series was shown to District Justice Sean Magee to establish the identity of a video recorder stolen from a Rathnew house.

The owner said that he could identify the recorder because of a missing part, because one of the wires was longer than the other, and because there was a tape of Glenroe in the machine when it was stolen from his sitting room last October.

In order to verify the tape, Detective Gardai Pat Hayes and PJ Conroy had to bring a portable television set into court and Miley and Biddy made an unprecedented court appearance at 3.30 p.m.

The owner said that he went to bed on October 27 after watching his television which was linked to a JVC video recorder.

When he was called at 7.15 a.m. by his wife, he noticed that the recorder was gone from his sitting room.

He positively identified the recorder produced in court. It was valued at £600.

A defendant before the courts denied receiving the video recorder. He told gardai he had paid £100 for the item to a man in Rathnew.