Supreme Court stalls Curtin inquiry

GARDAÍ were aware, some months prior to Judge Brian Curtin’s appointment in 2001 as a Circuit Court judge, of “electronic transmissions” and the “matters now being investigated” by a Joint Oireachtas Committee set up to investigate the judge’s alleged misbehaviour, the Supreme Court was told yesterday.

Gardaí were aware of these matters in August 2001 and Judge Curtin was not appointed to the Circuit Court until November 2001, John Rogers SC, for Judge Curtin, said. However, nothing was done “in the context of a judicial appointment” in 2001 and the State could not now complain about delays in the committee’s investigation.

Judge Curtin, he said, had been acquitted last year on charge of possessing child pornography and he stood over that acquittal.