Woman tried to cause trial collapse
A young woman promised a man ‘relaxers’ to come into a judge and jury trial and shout the word ‘rat’ at her boyfriend in the hope that this would cause the collapse of the case.
She confessed to this crime yesterday and also admitted a related criminal damage charge where she organised for someone to spray graffiti on the front wall of the courthouse on Washington St, Cork, including the words: “Karma is a c***. [name of man on trial] rat.”
Megan O’Connor, aged 22, of 30 Ardcullen, Hollyhill, Cork, pleaded guilty to two offences.
The first was a count of criminal damage that, on November 21, 2016, at the courthouse on Washington St, Cork, she caused criminal damage to the façade of the building.
The other charge was that, at the same date and place, she attempted to commit the offence of perverting the course of justice contrary to common law.
Detective Garda Stephen Fuller said the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed trial by indictment if there was a plea of not guilty and only at Cork District Court if there was a plea of guilty.
Sergeant Gearóid Davis told Judge Olann Kelleher yesterday that the charges related to incidents during the trial by judge and jury of a man who denied charges relating to firing a shot from a gun into a house in Cork. The jury found him guilty and he was jailed for 14 years in November 2016.
The detective said that, during the trial, there were applications to have the jury discharged because of a message painted on the façade of the courthouse in relation to the accused and on the same day when a man entered the courtroom and called the accused man a rat. The trial judge refused the applications to discharge the jury.
Det Garda Fuller said that, in the case against O’Connor, she was the partner of the man on trial and that she organised both incidents.
Frank Buttimer, solicitor, said: “The background is fairly obvious in terms of what was afoot. An individual was before judge and jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in a contested trial.
“The events that are described were certainly designed to have certain consequences for the trial but they did not have a consequence for the trial. It ran through and finished. An application made to court [to discharge the jury] was disregarded and the trial continued to an adverse conclusion for the party before the court.”
Judge Olann Kelleher said it was a very serious case.
