Four men plead not guilty to Raheny false imprisonment

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

Niall Byrne, Mark Farrelly, Christopher Corcoran and David Byrne pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the false imprisonment of four members of the Richardson family at their home in Ashcroft, Raheny, Dublin, on 13 and 14 March 2005. They also pleaded not guilty to robbing Paul Richardson and Securicor of €2.28 million on 14 March 2005. The proceedings were reported on 26 April 2018.

The trial was continuing before Judge Melanie Greally and an enlarged jury of seven women and seven men.

Forensic video analyst Feargal Ó Lideadha said he did not know why there was a gap in Securicor CCTV recording between 5.26am and 5.29am on 14 March 2005. He agreed he could not rule out that somebody had pressed pause, when Feargal Kavanagh SC, defending Niall Byrne, put that possibility to him.

Ó Lideadha said he believed best practice guidelines for preserving digital evidence had not been followed because there was no audit trail. He had no records of who extracted or copied the data and no written explanation for the gap. Maddie Grant BL, prosecuting, suggested that a system blip followed by a reboot might have caused it. Ó Lideadha said he could not say what happened and accepted that recording continued after the gap.