Surreal tale of murderer jailed for insurance offence

IT was nothing short of surreal when Fred Flannery was imprisoned in 1997 for riding a motorbike without insurance.

A year earlier, the same man had been charged with murder, but the trial in the Central Criminal Court despite having heard macabre and brutal evidence collapsed with a crash which still reverberates through garda ranks.

Frederick Flannery, then aged 35, of no fixed abode, had denied the murder of Denis Patrick O'Driscoll, aged 32, at Wellington Terrace, off Grattan's Hill, Lower Glanmire Road, Cork, between December 15 and 31, 1994.

The trial got underway on June 17, 1996, and ended in dramatic headline-screaming circumstances.

In a judgment on an application for acquittal, Mr Justice Barr said Mr Flannery's right to a fair trial had been irreparably damaged because of the "mendacious" conduct of investigating gardaí, in not disclosing important case documents until a very late stage.

The judge said the conduct of gardaí involved, under a senior officer, was "as saddening as it is reprehensible". The trial was "so tainted by the appalling misbehaviour of Supt Patrick J Brennan and his investigating team that it cannot be satisfactorily retrieved".

The judge also said he did not accept Supt Brennan's explanation of the delay in disclosing documents, and concluded there was "a conscious and deliberate policy, probably orchestrated by Supt Brennan and at least one of his investigating officers, to subvert the course of justice in the trial".

He said Supt Brennan and his team "consistently and deliberately resorted to a policy the objective of which was to deprive the accused of his constitutional right to a fair trial in accordance with the law".

He discharged the jury and Mr Flannery, who then calmly left the dock and sat in the body of the court.

Documents said to be of "capital" importance had been withheld until the eleventh hour, said Patrick

MacEntee SC, defending.

He claimed gardaí had suppressed the documents "so as to lend a phoney credibility to the evidence of the witness in the box at the time".

That witness was Michael Flannery Jnr, the accused man's nephew, who was described at the opening of the trial as the key prosecution witness.

The documents included a report of an interview with a man who said Mr Flannery Jnr had told him and other youths that he was on "acid (LSD) or some such drug" when he made certain allegations about the defendant.

The judge described the delayed disclosure as "outrageous".

Flannery Jnr, aged 17, claimed that his uncle, Freddie Flannery, had shown him the body pieces, telling him he had killed Patrick O'Driscoll and cut up his body with a saw. His uncle also showed him a coal bag, saying Mr O'Driscoll's body was inside.

An investigation into the delayed disclosure was then held in the absence of the jury, after which the defence asked the judge to withdraw the jury from the case and direct them to return a not guilty verdict. Ruling on the application, Mr Justice Barr said the circumstances in which it was made were "bizarre and unique in my experience and that of counsel".

A year later, Fred Flannery was convicted by Judge Brendan Wallace at Macroom District Court of driving without insurance at Gurteenroe, Macroom, on September 28, 1996.

He was convicted of driving without insurance and jailed for six months, banned from driving for five years and had his licence endorsed.