Jobstown ‘should have been handled in district court’

FORMER justice minister Michael McDowell says that a ‘sledgehammer was used to crack a nut’ in charging the socalled Jobstown Six with false imprisonment.

Mr McDowell, who is also a former attorney general, said the DPP’s charge of false imprisonment would normally be brought for more serious incidents such as kidnappings, and that in this case it was ‘disproportionate’.

And he said that, as a former tánaiste himself, he was surprised Joan Burton – who held that position at the time – was kept in a car for several hours without ‘a substantial intervention’.

Six men including Solidarity TD Paul Murphy were charged with falsely imprisoning Ms Burton and her adviser Karen O’Connell for three hours during an water charges protest in Jobstown, Tallaght, Dublin, on November 15, 2014.

A jury this week returned unanimous verdicts of not Queries: Michael McDowell guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after a ten-week trial. Speaking yesterday, Mr McDowell said the trial had been a sledgehammer approach ‘to crack this particular nut’. He told RTÉ the issue could have been dealt with in the district court as a public order offence.

He remarked: ‘Many people might think that this was fundamentally a smallish incident which might have been dealt with under the Public Order Act of 1994 and that if events had been handled differently, it wouldn’t have gone on this long or have this result or been made into such a cause to celebrate for these people who were involved in the protest.’

He said the offence of unlawful imprisonment seemed to be ‘disproportionate’.

He added: ‘There’s an offence for somebody without lawful authority or reasonable excuse to wilfully prevent or interrupt the free passage of any person or vehicle in a public place – that’s an offence under the Public Order Act.

‘There’s provision under that Act for gardaí who are present and see that happening to direct people to leave the place and to desist from behaviour and I just wonder, was all this contained and managed in a proper way?’

Mr McDowell said that as a former tánaiste he would have been ‘very surprised if, when I held that office, I could have been kept in my car with a Garda driver for that length of time without a substantial intervention and a proper use of police powers to ensure my departure’. His remarks come after Sinn Féin backed calls for an inquiry into how the trial came about.

Sinn Féin justice spokesperson Jonathan O’Brien said: ‘It was blatantly obvious these very serious charges should never have been brought forward by the DPP. I am also deeply concerned that the evidence given by a large number gardaí during the trial was completely at odds with the video evidence.’

However, Mr McDowell disagreed that an inquiry was necessary. He said: ‘We don’t need an inquiry into it but I think that internally, in the gardaí, there should be an examination of the manner in which the whole incident was managed and approached and whether the resources they had were used in a sensible way in all the circumstances.

‘I think the fact that there was a ten-week trial, after such a long delay, raises questions about the delay in the Irish criminal justice procedure system which are more widespread than this particular case.’ ‘A dark day for democracy’

– Page 14 jennifer.bray@dailymail.ie

‘Was it managed in a proper way?’