The Supreme Court has overturned a High Court judgment in favour of Anselm Joseph Walshe after finding that his arrest under section 30 of the Offences against the State Act 1939 was lawful.
Walshe and Kay Bedford had been arrested in Limerick before being taken to the Bridewell Garda station in Dublin. Detective Inspector Anthony Fennessy told the High Court that he arrested Walshe on suspicion of membership of the IRA. His evidence was that he genuinely held that suspicion, principally because of secret intelligence contained in a document described as a "C 77" report.
However, Fennessy also repeatedly said that, if the decision had been his alone, he would not have arrested Walshe at that stage and would first have made further inquiries. He said he carried out the arrest on the instructions of a superior officer.
The High Court held that a lawful section 30 arrest required the arresting officer's reasonable and bona fide suspicion to be the factor which actually motivated the arrest. On that approach, Walshe succeeded.
Mr Justice Geoghegan disagreed with that legal test. He held that section 30 required the arresting garda himself to possess a genuine and objectively reasonable suspicion. An instruction from a superior officer could not, by itself, supply that suspicion. But where the arresting officer independently had the required suspicion, the legislation did not additionally require him to agree personally that an arrest was the appropriate course at that moment.
The Supreme Court therefore concluded that Walshe's arrest was lawful and allowed the appeal, setting aside the High Court judgment in his favour.
The companion appeal involving Kay Bedford had a different result. Mr Justice Geoghegan agreed with Mr Justice Kearns that the appeal in her case should be dismissed, and did not add further reasons on that issue in this judgment.