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A man who was arrested for violating an anti-social behavior order by speaking and singing about Jesus through a loudspeaker in public could not stop his trial to be held on November 2.
Stephen Tallon, King Street, Wexford, was arrested by a guard who overheard him “singing and referring to Jesus” in the Bull Ring area, city of Wexford, on the morning of October 7 last.
In August, Tallon had been subjected to a District Court order forbidding him to “engage in public speaking and recording” anywhere within the city of Wexford, including the Bull Ring area.
This was done under section 115 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 dealing with antisocial civil conduct orders.
On Friday in High Court, Tallon, who has been detained in Cloverhill, Dublin, since October 7 in pre-trial detention on charges including a violation of that order and public order charges, did not obtain an order to stop his Monday trial. , and by bond, pending judicial review.
Judge Charles Meenan, following a request for unilateral representation presented by Colman Fitzgerald SC, in favor of Mr. Tallon, also refused to grant authorization to judicially review the charges against him.
The judge said he was satisfied that the District Court judge, who is due to hear his case on Monday, will be in a position to decide whether the case raised constitutional issues, including freedom of expression, as stated by Tallon’s lawyers. The District Court was, he said, the appropriate forum to hear the evidence in the case.
This would include Mr. Talon’s claims that there was no evidence, as required to be a crime, that he was harassing, that he was likely harassing, that he caused or could cause significant or persistent alarm or distress to others or to the use or enjoyment of your property. .
The court heard that a local store owner had called gardaí on October 7, complaining that the noise was preventing her from hearing or speaking to customers while the man chanted and spoke “about redemption and religion.”
Arrest
When Garda Daniel Guihen and a colleague arrived within minutes, Garda Guihen said that, in a statement of evidence, he rolled down his car window and heard a male voice “singing and referring to Jesus.”
The officer recognized Mr. Tallon, whom he knew previously, and arrested him for failure to comply with the August order.
In an affidavit, Dublin attorney Cormac O’Ceallaigh, who took up Tallon’s case from his previous Wexford attorneys on October 19, said that under the civil antisocial behavior order, the District Court in August said he was satisfied that he had behaved antisocially. That court was also satisfied that Mr. Tallon had received, as required by law, three or more behavioral warnings in six consecutive months, two in June and two in July.
O’Ceallaigh said the law also requires those warnings to be recorded in writing and notified to the person, but he, as a lawyer, had not yet seen those warnings.
In the judicial review request, an order was also requested to annul the issuance of the August civil order.
It was also requested that article 115 of the 2006 Law be declared invalid, taking into account articles 38 and 40 of the Constitution, which protect the right to a trial in the due course of the law and freedom of expression.
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