DPP v Power

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 31 July 1975
• Neutral Citation: 1965 WJSC-CCA 515
• Date: 31 July 1975
• Court: Court of Criminal Appeal

1965 WJSC-CCA 515

COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

MR. JUSTICE GRIFFIN

MR. JUSTICE GANNON

MR. JUSTICE PARKS

PEOPLE (DPP) v. POWER

THE PEOPLE AT THE SUIT OF THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

DANIEL POWER

1 JUDGMENT DELIVERED on the 31st Day of July 1975 by MR. JUDTICE GRIFFIN

2 The applicant, Daniel Power, was tried in the Central Criminal Court on the 23rd April, 1975, before Mr. Justice Hamilton and a jury on a charge of shop breaking and larceny on a date unknown between the 12th October, 1974, and the 15th October, 1975. The charge arose out of an occurrence at the jeweller's shop owned by J.W. Harrison (Jewellers) Limited at Little Tavorn Street, Limerick, shortly after midnight on the 14th October, 1974. A grille was removed from the shop window through which a large stone was them thrown and jewellery to the value of approximately £1,500 to £1,600 was stolen from the premises. The applicant was found guilty and was sentenced to three years imprisonment. His application for certificate for leave to appeal was refused by the learned trial judge and he has applied to this Court for leave to appeal.

3 The care for the prosecution was dependant in the main in the evidence of Noel Casey and Edmund Coughlan, with whom the applicant had spent some hours on the night of the 13th October. Casey's evidence was to the effect that he met the applicant and Coughlan at approximately 9 o'clock in the evening; they walked around the city for a while and, in the course of their walk, they passed Harrison's jewellers shop. Casey stated that they agreed "that they would give it a bang later on in the night", that they returned some hours later and that the applicant removed the grille (which had been prepared for removal on the earlier visit) and that the applicant broke the shop window, took two pads of rings out of the window and that all three then ran away and later shared out the rings "in fistfuls". He stated that the applicant then dumpted the two pads. Coughlan's evidence was to the effect that when they were passing Harrison's on their walk around the city they decided to break into it but that he Inter changed his mind and when the break in actually took place that he "walked around the block" and that he heard the noise of breaking glass but did not see what happened. When he had last seen Casey and the applicant, Casey was on Harrison's side of the road and the applicant was on the other side. The applicant gave evidence and he stated that at the time of breaking into the shop he and Coughlan were on the side of the street opposite to Harrison's but Casey was **???query?????? drunk", and was falling around outside Harrison's window, that he (the applicant) had his back to Harrison's when he heard the window being broken by Casey and that Casey took something out of the window which later turned out to be jewellery. All there than run away and Casey afterwards showed to the other two the pads of rings and efforded some to them, but that both refused to accept any of the proceeds of the crime.

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