Burke brother’s conviction over melee in court is struck out
SIMEON Burke has had his conviction for a ‘volatile’ breach of the peace following a ‘melee’ at the Four Courts last year struck out after a judge found there was insufficient evidence he had committed a criminal offence.
Mr Burke had argued that gardaí took an ‘overzealous and panicked approach’ to the incident and submitted that at the time he was removed from court by officers, there was no order in place to do so.
At an appeal against his District Court conviction yesterday, Judge John Martin said he wasn’t convinced Simeon Burke’s ‘unbecoming’ behaviour met the threshold for a public order offence.
Mr Burke, 25, who was called to the Bar last October, had denied the charge before Judge John Hughes at Dublin District Court in July of last year, but was convicted and fined €300 for a public order offence that occurred on March 7, 2023, on or about the Four Courts, Inns Quay, in Dublin.
Burke was convicted under Section 6 of the Public Order Act which states it is an ‘offence
Dragged by three gardaí
for any person in a public place to use or engage in any threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace or being reckless as to whether a breach of the peace may be occasioned’.
At the District Court Appeals Court before Judge Martin yesterday, Simeon Burke, with an address at Cloonsunna, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, had his appeal allowed and his conviction quashed.
Judge Martin said the threshold for Mr Burke, who was representing himself, to be convicted of the breach of the peace offence had to be ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ as it was a criminal matter.
Judge Martin said he did not feel the Garda witnesses had proved the ‘requisite standard’ for Mr Burke’s behaviour to attract a criminal conviction.
Mr Burke had been at the Four Courts where his brother Enoch was involved in a legal dispute before the Court of Appeal (CoA) with Wilson’s Hospital School in Co. Westmeath.
Simeon Burke’s contested District Court hearing featured CCTV evidence from the Four Courts, but not from inside the court where the incident started, before it spilled out to the yard where Mr Burke was dragged by three gardaí to the front of the building and onto Inns Quay before being arrested.
At the appeal hearing yesterday, audio recordings were played to the court of the incident where members of the Burke family attended Enoch Burke’s failed appeal to have an injunction against him attending the school lifted.
Garda Michael McGrath told DPP solicitor Paul Bond that about 40 minutes into the hearing, Mr Burke’s sister Ammi started to interrupt the court.
Gda McGrath said other family members started to shout as well and the three judges rose.
The garda said he requested colleagues to attend and assist in removing Ammi and her mother Martina on the direction of the court, and went into the yard to explain to them what was happening in the courtroom.
Gda McGrath said that ‘after a minute’ he returned to the court where the judges had resumed delivering judgement and members of the Burke family started shouting at the court again.
‘He [Simeon] obstructed to the maximum of his ability. I continually asked him to leave,’ he said.
Mr Burke said Gda McGrath had approached Mr Burke to remove him without explanation and had ripped his shirt.
He said gardaí needed a judicial order to remove anyone from a court and this had not been the case.