Prosecution takes aim at own witness in serious assault case
TWO witnesses were branded as “bare-faced liars” by the Prosecution during the trial of a Sligo man with regard to an incident that took place nine years ago.
Michael Corcoran, 34, of Glendallon, Ballytivnan, Sligo was on trial at Sligo Circuit Court on the charge of assault causing serious harm.
The charge related to an offence when Mr Bernard Smith suffered a number of serious injuries on the evening of July 23, 2015 at St Anne’s Terrace in Sligo town.
Smith had to be admitted to hospital following an incident that led to a fractured skull, a broken jaw, a swollen eye and a bleed on the brain.
Corcoran was charged by the DPP for the offence following witness statements from Smith and his friend John Lynott who had been with Smith at the time of the incident.
However, when Smith and Lynott appeared in Court to give evidence, both stated that they could not remember anything that had happened, nor could they recall making statements to the Gardaí the day after the incident with Lynott’s statement identifying Corcoran as having assaulted Smith with a blunt object.
In his summation to the jury, barrister Leo Mulrooney – acting for the Prosecution – said that it was “utterly regrettable that two witnesses (Smith and
Lynott) told you bare-faced lies”.
Mr Mulrooney went on to add: “Mr Smith couldn’t even recall what decade this happened to him and Mr Lynott was lying.
“Their statements (made to Gardaí) at the time (of the incident in July 2015) closely reflect what happened.
“Mr Lynott claimed to have no memory of the incident or making his statement and should be ashamed of himself for coming here and not telling the truth.
“According to Garda Kelly (who also gave evidence), Mr Lynott gave him a statement of what happened and signed a statutory declaration which obligates the witness to tell the truth.
“As you heard from Garda Kelly, Mr Lynott told him that Mr Corcoran had come out of nowhere and hit Mr Smith with something like an iron bar adding that he thought Corcoran had hit Smith twice. Mr Lynott also told Garda Kelly that after hitting Smith, Corcoran hid the bar up his T-shirt and made off in a car.
“Those words are the ring of truth and made the day after Mr Lynott witnessed the event.
“What was said to you by Mr Lynott in the witness box was a lie.”
Corcoran’s barrister, Desmond Dockery, in his own summation told the jury that “this case is rife with suspicion”.
He went on to add: “Suspicion doesn’t cut it as a standard of proof. Memories are unreliable after a decade and this case is nine years old and whatever happened that evening was something that happened within a couple of minutes.
“Both Smith and Lynott were drunk – with both admitting that they had been drinking all day – and Smith accepts that he fell. Smith couldn’t recall anything.
He had suffered head injuries and is it surprising that he couldn’t remember what had happened given that he had fractured his skull?
“John Lynott remember was the Prosecution’s star witness and yet he couldn’t tell you anything about it when he came to Court to give evidence.
“Even though John Lynott had no evidence to offer in the witness box, the Prosecution say you can rely on what he had told the Gardaí in 2015.
“That is hearsay and hearsay is inadmissible in a Court of Law.
“The Prosecution have said that Mr Lynott is ‘a bare-faced liar’. Either he is or his own drug use over the last nine years has affected his memory. Whatever, he was the ‘star witness’ that the Prosecution were insisting that you rely on.
“The State has an unreliable eye-witness who couldn’t string a word of evidence.
“Would you want to be convicted by such a witness?”
As The Sligo Weekender went to print, the jury in this case were still deliberating over their verdict.