The High Court has rejected Sean Carraher’s attempt to overturn a harassment conviction arising from alleged abusive telephone calls to his estranged wife.
Mr Carraher, who represented himself in the judicial review proceedings, claimed recordings used in the prosecution had been secretly made, sent abroad, altered and returned before being relied upon in court. He also alleged that telephone records were inconsistent with the conversations attributed to him and argued that the Circuit Court’s treatment of the evidence demonstrated bias and prejudice.
The conviction under challenge arose from allegations of persistent abusive calls between August 2007 and May 2008. Mr Carraher was convicted in Bray District Court in April 2009 and received a six-month suspended prison sentence. He appealed to the Circuit Court, where the conviction and sentence were affirmed.
Evidence before the Circuit Court included Garda interviews, recordings of telephone conversations and a transcript. Garda witnesses said an original recording had been enhanced to increase its volume, but that its contents had not changed. The judgment records that Mr Carraher’s lawyers did not object at trial to the recordings being admitted into evidence.
Mr Carraher also relied on an investigation by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. GSOC acknowledged an unexplained discrepancy in telephone records but said it had not established that Gardaí had falsified evidence. It noted that Mr Carraher had been played the messages during a Garda interview and had not then disputed leaving them or their contents.
Mr Justice McDermott held that judicial review is not a rehearing of the evidence. The High Court can intervene where a lower court acts without or beyond jurisdiction, breaches fundamental fair procedures or commits certain other fundamental legal errors. It cannot ordinarily reassess factual findings or the weight attached to evidence.
Any objection to the admissibility of the recordings should have been made before the Circuit Court judge. As those issues fell squarely within the trial judge’s jurisdiction, the High Court found no sufficient basis to quash the conviction or grant the declaration sought.