The Court of Appeal has dismissed Samuel Power’s appeal against his conviction for possessing a stolen caravan, holding that the warrant used to search for it was valid. The judgment addresses the conviction appeal only; it says his separate appeal against the severity of his sentence was not dealt with in this decision.
Power was convicted in Dublin Circuit Court on 29 April 2016 of possessing stolen property, contrary to section 18 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. He received a three-year prison sentence.
The prosecution case was that the caravan was among three new caravans stolen from business premises in the Netherlands on 24 May 2012. Gardaí found it on 18 July that year at Bay 14 of a halting site on Cloverhill Road. The judgment says its vehicle identification number had been altered, changing a digit from 9 to 8, and that identification and registration numbers linked it to one of the stolen caravans.
At interview, Power said he had bought the caravan about six weeks before it was seized from a man he named as Patrick McDonagh, paying €14,000 in cash. He said he had received no paperwork but had been assured it would follow. These were statements attributed to Power in the judgment, not findings by the appeal court about the purchase.
The appeal challenged the search warrant on several grounds, including the handling of confidential informant information, whether the District Court judge knew the caravan was being lived in, and whether theft was an offence in the Netherlands. The court rejected those objections. It said the Garda sergeant’s own inquiries supported the information provided through the confidential source system, and that the caravan’s use as a home did not make it immune from seizure. It also said formal expert evidence was not required to establish that theft was a crime in the Netherlands.
The court considered the main warrant issue to be whether the District Court needed information that theft in the Netherlands carried a potential sentence of at least five years. It held that it did not. The warrant concerned a suspected offence of possessing stolen property, which carries a possible maximum five-year sentence under Irish law. The court said information about penalties in the country where the theft occurred would be required at sentencing if that stage were reached, but did not prevent the warrant from being issued.
The appeal court also rejected complaints that the trial judge’s jury charge and other remarks made the trial unfair. It concluded that the judge had not exceeded the limits of legitimate comment and that his sentencing remarks did not make the trial unsatisfactory. The court therefore dismissed the appeal against conviction.