The Court of Appeal has dismissed David Lynch’s appeal against convictions for possession of a knife, burglary, criminal damage and obstructing a peace officer, finding no error in the trial judge’s ruling on evidence obtained after Gardaí traced a phone found at a burgled house.
The convictions were entered on 23 July 2021. The appeal concerned whether Garda White should have cautioned Lynch before asking him to identify a phone recovered inside the property, and whether evidence later obtained following his arrest should have been excluded.
Gardaí attended a house in Dublin’s suburbs on 26 January 2019 after a burglary. A rear window had been smashed and the house ransacked. They found a black Samsung phone among broken glass inside. The house owner told them it did not belong to anyone in the house.
The phone rang while Garda White had it. A man who identified himself as “Paulie” said he had lost it in the area. White said his name was “Steve” and arranged to meet him at the Molly Malone Statue in Dublin city centre. White testified that he believed the phone’s owner was responsible for the burglary, while also accepting that the person who came to meet him could have been someone else.
At the meeting, Lynch asked whether White had his phone. Before handing it over, White asked him to identify a feature. Lynch pointed out a phone number taped to the back. White then identified himself as a garda, arrested Lynch for burglary and cautioned him. The judgment says Lynch resisted arrest. A search at Donnybrook Garda Station recovered jewellery that had been taken from the house.
Lynch argued that the ownership answer was an incriminating admission obtained without a timely caution, contrary to the Judges’ Rules and the requirements of fairness. He said the arrest and resulting search were tainted. The prosecution argued that White was entitled to make inquiries and that suspicion arose only after Lynch established he owned the phone.
The appeal court said a caution under Rule 2 was required when a garda had decided to charge someone. It held that White’s suspicion hardened only when Lynch identified the phone’s distinctive sticker, and found no error in the trial judge’s ruling on that issue.
The court also rejected the fairness argument. It distinguished the case from an earlier decision in which a person became agitated during a farm search and was prompted to speak without a caution. Here, the court found White was entitled to ask about ownership and that the circumstances were different. It concluded that the trial judge made no error and dismissed the conviction appeal. The judgment does not describe a separate appeal concerning sentence.