Bail for man despite 38 arrest warrants
Gardaí strongly objected to Connors walking free
A MAN charged with domestic abuse has been released on €200 bail despite evading the court 38 times previously.
Michael Connors, 27, must reside at the family home as part of the bail conditions, said the judge.
Connors gave a thumbs-up sign at a supporter as the order was issued, despite strong Garda objections.
Apart from domestic abuse, he is charged with offensive conduct under the Intoxicating Liquor Act for ‘smoking a brown substance from tin foil in full view of the public’, despite being told by a garda to put it away.
Gardaí, who strongly objected to bail, said they did not believe he would turn up in court if released, given the number of bench warrants – 38 – he has ‘amassed’.
However, Judge Conal Gibbons released him on bail and struck out a Garda condition that Connors ‘not come to the attention of gardaí’.
Judge Gibbons said that condition ‘is far too vague for my liking’, and allowed Connors to be bailed, on condition that he reside at the family home and sign on at Cabinteely Garda Station three times a week, between 9am and 9pm.
On Friday, Dublin District Court heard that there were 38 bench warrants issued for his arrest after he failed to appear in court on previous, unrelated charges.
Connors, of Tig Mo Chroí halting site in Glenamuck, Dublin, had been arrested last Friday after his 38th bench warrant was issued for four outstanding charges. They include domestic violence, failure to appear in court, threatening and abusive behaviour under Section 6 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act and violating Section 5.1 of the Intoxicating Liquor Act for causing offence by smoking a brown substance from tin foil in Foster Place, Dublin. The charge says he continued to do so, despite being told by Garda Noel Edward to move on.
Mr Connors was arrested on Friday at Tig Mo Chroí, the same halting site where 11 travellers were killed in a fire in 2015.
He is related to some of the victims of the fire. Five adults, one a pregnant woman, and five children were killed in the inferno in October, 2015.
Thomas Connors, 27, and his wife Sylvia, 25, and their children Jim, 5, Christy, 2, and six-monthold Mary also lost their lives in the fire. Willie Lynch, 25, and Tara Gilbert, 27, died alongside their daughters Kelsey and Jodie. Tara was four months pregnant.
A brother of Willie Lynch, Jimmy, 39, also died. Travellers, including the Connors, only moved back to the halting site last August after living in temporary homes on council land.
The newly designed halting site includes fire walls, fire blankets and alarms.
‘Gave thumbs-up as order was issued’
FOR quite some years now, the Irish Daily Mail has been highlighting the scandal of shortcomings and failings in the criminal justice system.
We regularly see inconsistent sentencing in the courts of law. While violent felons often walk free with suspended jail terms, it is not unheard of for custodial sentences to be imposed on people who have inflicted no physical harm on anyone.
Yet that is far from the full extent of the problem. We have also called for stricter bail conditions when it comes to repeat offenders.
Nothing better illustrates the need for reform than the case of Michael Connors. The 27-year-old, who already has a criminal record and is now facing a string of charges, is out on €200 bail.
Among the offences he stands accused of are domestic abuse, using threatening behaviour in public and failing to appear in court. There is a particularly grim irony to this last charge, given that 38 bench warrants were issued for his arrest after he failed to turn up in court on unrelated proceedings.
It goes without saying that Michael Connors has yet to be convicted of anything in this particular instance. But there are two important facts here: he is a recidivist offender and, regardless of what he was previously convicted of, he now faces a charge of domestic abuse.
Whether he is innocent or guilty, letting him walk the streets ahead of his trial will hardly encourage complainants in other alleged abuse cases to come forward.