Terence Maguire acquitted of reckless endangerment and criminal damage

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

A jury acquitted Terence Maguire of reckless endangerment and criminal damage charges arising from a gas explosion at his Dublin home. The proceedings were reported on 4 April 2019.

Maguire had pleaded not guilty to intentionally or recklessly engaging in conduct that created a substantial risk of death or serious harm to another at Sullivan Street, Dublin 7, on 1 June 2014. He also denied 13 criminal damage charges involving houses and cars around the location.

The report said Maguire cut into a gas pipe and took sleeping tablets in a plan to kill himself by gas poisoning. He later went to his back door and lit a cigarette, causing the explosion. His home was blown up, three neighbouring buildings were damaged and demolished, and cars and other homes were damaged. Maguire accepted that cutting the pipe and lighting the cigarette caused the explosion, but said he had not intended it.

The court heard that Maguire had battled mental illness for 13 years and spent lengthy periods in psychiatric hospital between 2009 and 2014. He said he knew the gas was on but had not been in a rational state of mind to understand that lighting a cigarette would cause an explosion. He told Detective Garda Tim O’Sullivan that he would now regard his actions as reckless, but that his state of mind and the urgency he felt about his life had overridden thoughts of recklessness at the time.

Defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC told the jury that recklessness was the issue it had to consider. He said jurors must acquit unless satisfied that Maguire had thought about what would happen before lighting the cigarette and had gone ahead anyway. Judge Elma Sheahan thanked the jurors and commended the handling of the case by gardaí and lawyers on both sides.