Trevor Gleeson wins appeal against drug possession convictions
This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.
The Court of Appeal allowed Trevor Gleeson’s appeal against five drug possession convictions on 14 November 2016. Mr. Justice Mahon delivered the judgment.
A majority jury at Naas Circuit Criminal Court convicted him on 12 December 2012 after a six-day trial. The five counts under section 3 of the Misuseuse of Drugs Act 1977 concerned Benzylpiperazine (count 2), Diamorphine (count 6) and Cannabis (counts 7 and 8); the judgment describes count 4 only as “possession”. The jury disagreed on four possession counts under section 15 of the same Act.
On 31 January 2013, he received an 18-month prison sentence for the convictions. The entire term was suspended for three years.
On 22 December 2009, gardaí saw a plastic bag thrown from his car before stopping him. It contained Diamorphine and cannabis worth approximately €6,000. Gleeson, a Midlands Prison officer, maintained that criminals had threatened and intimidated him to bring drugs into the prison. He said he had always intended to dump the drugs rather than bring them inside.
A second trial on the four unresolved counts began on 23 July 2013. At the end of its second day, the prosecution disclosed CCTV showing two men approaching him at a supermarket on 29 March 2010. He claimed they were intimidating him. The trial judge discharged the jury because of the late disclosure. The footage was consistent with part of his account of a confrontation involving him and his young son, given to gardaí in a statement dated 20 April 2010.
The appeal court held that the trial judge had wrongly emphasised the duress test as solely objective. It also held that the CCTV should have been disclosed during the first trial, because viewing it might have confirmed, or more strongly confirmed, that he acted under duress.
It found it unnecessary to decide whether certain verdicts were perverse, whether the investigation of his duress complaint was unsatisfactory and improper, or whether the Benzylpiperazine count concerned an offence unknown to law.