Judge in Niall Gilligan assault case tells jury to make 'fresh start' in deliberations
Gordon Deegan
The judge in the Niall Gilligan assault case has asked the jury in the case to make “a fresh start” in their deliberations this morning.
At Ennis Circuit Court on Wednesday, Judge Francis Comerford sent the jury out at 10.40am to resume their deliberations.
In the case, Mr Gilligan (48) of Rossroe, Kilmurry, Sixmilebridge denies the assault causing harm with a stick of a then 12-year-old boy at the Jamaica Inn hostel, Sixmilebridge on October 5th 2023.
On Tuesday, the jury deliberated for 2 hours and 47 minutes before they returned to the court just before 5pm, and the jury foreman asked Judge Comerford: “What is the next step if we are not unanimous?”
In court this morning, Judge Comerford told the jury: “I would ask you a fresh start and consider matters again and talk through the issues."
Judge Comerford told the jury if they have a question or want to communicate any difficulties, they can come back into court.
Judge Comerford said that he would call the jury back in the course of the morning to confirm where they are and consider whether to move on to the next stage or not.
On Tuesday, Judge Comerford told the jury: "It is always preferable that you try to reach a unanimous verdict - that is the ideal and it is better than any alternative."
The jury commenced their deliberations at 12.33pm on Tuesday, and before they commenced, Judge Comerford told them that they should make their decision in the case “after a cold, direct, forensic determination of the facts”.
In his closing speech to the jury on Monday, counsel for Mr Gilligan, Patrick Whyms BL, said in no way is Mr Gilligan trying to suggest that he was entitled to punish the boy as was suggested and said that the injuries sustained by the boy “are clearly regrettable”.
Mr Whyms said that on the evening at the Jamaica Inn hostel, Mr Gilligan “didn’t know that he was dealing with a child and did not create this situation”.
Mr Whyms (instructed by solicitor, Daragh Hassett) said that Mr Gilligan "was at the end of his tether" by the vandalism being done to a vacant property he was trying to sell.
Putting forward the defence of reasonable force against the charge, Mr Whyms said that Mr Gilligan was at the Jamaica Inn hostel on the night of October 5th “in the dark and believed that he was under siege”.
He said: “Believing himself under threat and needing to protect himself and his property, Niall Gilligan needs to make an instant decision, and so we are here."
Mr Whyms said, “And Mr Gilligan, a family man who has young children and no previous convictions, gives a clear story which hasn’t changed and an entirely credible, fulsome account of what happened."
Earlier in her closing speech on Monday, Ms Sarah Jane Comerford BL (instructed by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey) told the jury: “This is a story of a man who lost his cool.”
She said: “Instead of picking up the boy after he slipped and bringing him out to his car and driving him home and telling his parents, he hit him and lost it and he was angry and frustrated.”
Ms Comerford said that the alleged assault in broad daylight “is the action of a man who took out his anger and frustration on a child. There is no evidence that his injuries were caused by anything other than his interactions with Niall Gilligan.”
Ms Comerford said that Niall Gilligan “lost control and punished the boy for the damage and inconvenience caused to his property on a morning when he had to clean up human faeces and urine from his property”.
