‘I can’t do anything about it. The gardaí were out of time’

PEOPLE on the street shouted abuse at Judge Brian Curtin as he was escorted by gardaí from Tralee Circuit Court yesterday.

He remained impassive and declined to reply to questions from reporters as he was led down the courthouse steps and helped into a waiting Audi, which drove off immediately towards the town centre.

Judge Carroll Moran said people might consider the outcome to be “highly unsatisfactory”, but there was nothing could be done as the garda search of Judge Curtin’s home was carried out too late. The high-profile case collapsed following legal argument, with Judge Moran ruling that the seven-day search warrant had expired at the time it was used to search the Curtin home as part of Operation Amethyst on May 27, 2002.