An outburst in court from a motorist convicted of having no insurance saw him brought into custody for contempt of court only to be brought back to the courtroom to face a new charge of assaulting the garda who gave evidence in the case.
Mark Glavin of Lappan’s Place, Little Island, County Cork, denied Road Traffic Act offences against him. Judge John King heard evidence in the case including the testimony of Garda Ben Jenkins.
Mr Glavin, 37, denied the charges against him which related to a disputed incident on January 5 at Sarsfield Court industrial estate in Glanmire. After hearing the case, Judge King convicted him for having no insurance on the occasion.
Following a verbal outburst from the defendant, Judge King directed that he be taken into custody for contempt of court.
By the time he was brought back into court approximately one hour later he had been charged with a new offence of assaulting Garda Ben Jenkins contrary to Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act on September 2 at Cork Criminal Courts of Justice, Anglesea Street, Cork.
Sgt Colin Dowling charged him with that count and he made no reply to the charge. Inspector James O’Donovan said there was no objection to the defendant being remanded on bail on that charge.
Mark Glavin represented himself at the contested Road Traffic Act case but after being taken into custody for contempt of court and then being charged with assault, he was represented on free legal aid by Michael Quinlan solicitor.
Judge King asked the defendant: “Are you willing to proceed without interrupting me?” Mr Glavin replied that he was.
The judge then said to Mr Quinlan: “I take it he wishes to apologise.” Mr Quinlan agreed that the defendant did want to do so. By purging his contempt with this apology that was an end to this aspect of matters.
Mr Quinlan applied for a list of all gardaí present during the alleged assault outside the courtroom as the defendant was taken into custody and he also applied for CCTV of the area in question for the period shortly after noon.
Judge King said he would adjourn sentencing on the Road Traffic Act charge until September 9. The new charge of assault was adjourned for three months to allow time for directions to be obtained from the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.