Image from http://99problems.org
Judges have always been a law unto themselves – pun intended and Gombeen Man has exposed a few of the more idiotic goings on in courts around the country. Another to add to the list is the Honourable (?) Judge Donagh McDonagh (I’m always wary of those that have the same first and last names).
The venerable judge sat in the case of Garda Gerard Curtis, accused of using excessive force against John Paul Maughan, a Dublin scumbag, following a high-speed car chase. The brave Garda smashed the windows of the car and dragged said scumbag out before laying into him with a baton. Now, whatever about the scumbag deserving a kicking instead of a trial, it is surely up to the brave Garda to show restraint when in possession of a weapon rather than using it to tenderise fleeing suspects.
The judge ordered that the jury in the case acquit the brave Garda because the prosecution had “failed to disprove the accused was acting in self-defence when he hit the suspect with his baton.” What a great example of using words to confuse. Was it not up to the brave Garda to prove that he had acted in self-defence? After all, that is what would happen if you or I decided to take a stick to a scumbag. His Honour equated the assault by the brave Garda to that inflicted on Rodney King by members of the brave LA police force. Even more bizarrely, the judge also said, after viewing CCTV footage, “[t]his to me is a case of a single Garda overreacting.” He went on to castigate the 15 colleagues of the brave Garda for being partisan and maybe not being entirely truthful as to the facts of the beating. So, the brave Garda is ordered to be acquitted even though the judge thought that he used excessive force, nice use of one arm of the state to protect another.
