Andrew Shannon pleads not guilty to damaging paintings

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Andrew Shannon has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to damaging Felim Egan’s Morning Strand and Evening Strand at Dublin’s Shelbourne hotel. The alleged damage occurred on 8 January 2014. He has also pleaded not guilty to damaging Claude Monet’s Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sail Boat at the National Gallery of Ireland on Clare Street. That allegation concerns 29 June 2012.

The proceedings were reported on 28 November 2014. The trial was continuing before Judge Martin Nolan and a jury.

Eamon Kelly, the hotel’s loss prevention manager, told Kerida Naidoo, prosecuting, that the Egan paintings appeared to have been slashed or torn with an object and would be destroyed. The court had previously heard that the Monet had undergone an exhaustive repair process and was back on display.

The jury viewed CCTV showing Shannon entering the hotel with another man and walking around various locations. Garda Eugene McCarthy told Mr Naidoo that he formed an opinion from viewing CCTV and arrested Shannon at home on 31 January 2014.

Under questioning by Michael Bowman, defending, Mr Kelly agreed that before he returned from holidays on 14 January 2014, nobody had contacted gardaí or treated the room as a crime scene. Garda Eugene McCarthy agreed that the function room had not been preserved as a crime scene between 8 and 15 January, when gardaí were informed. He said a staff member seen interacting with Shannon on CCTV could not recall meeting the two men or what was said. Asked whether there had been a forensic examination to establish knife damage, he said the painting had been looked at but nobody could tell how it had been damaged.