DPP v O'Shea

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: FINLAY C.J.
• Judgment Date: 21 May 1990
• Neutral Citation: 2003 WJSC-CCA 4373
• Docket Number: nO. 61/1989
• Court: Court of Criminal Appeal
• Date: 21 May 1990

DPP v. O'SHEA

THE PEOPLE (AT THE SUIT OF THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLICPROSECUTIONS)

v.

PAUL O'SHEA

Applicant

2003 WJSC-CCA 4373

nO. 61/1989

THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

Citations:

AG V CASEY (NO 2) 1963 IR 33

DPP V O'SHEA 1983 ILRM 592

1 21st day of May 1990 by FINLAY C.J.

FINLAY C.J.

2 This is an application for leave to appeal against a conviction entered against the Applicant in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court as a result of a trial had before His Honour Judge Dominic Lynch and a jury of the County of the City of Dublin.

3 The Applicant was charged with a number of offences arising out of an incident which ocurred on the 3rd June of 1988 and was convicted of two offences, one being in possession of a firearm under circumstances whichindicated that it was not authorised to be in possession of a firearm and the other being an offence of using a mechanically propelled vehicle without the consent of the owner.

4 The first ground of appeal which applies to both the offences of which the Applicant was convicted is that the evidence of recognition which was the evidence of two members of the Garda siochana was so poor in the sense that the opportunity of recognition was so wholly inadequate that there was an obligation on the learned trial Judge to withdraw the case from the jury and not to permit it to go to them, and in fact the Applicant has to make the case, and does make the case in this court, that it was counsel who was not the counsel in the court below that that is so notwithstanding the absence of an application to the Judge during the course of the trial to withdraw the case from the jury on that ground. The evidence is not in dispute and was the evidence of two members of the Garda siochana, one of them driving andthe other being the front-seat passenger and observer in a garda car. They were travelling down a relatively narrow road in heavy traffic in the middle of a bright June day and they were travelling, they estimate, at something around 10 to 15 miles per hour because of the heaviness of the traffic. A car coming in the opposite direction to the other line of cars in a narrow road was travelling at approximately the same speed and traffic was equally heavy. The evidence of the driver of the car is that he saw this car, a Toyota salicia car approaching him at about 10 yards away and that he recognised the Applicant in this case as the driver of that car and he had known him well for five...