Costs of collapsed trial served on newspapers

THE bill of costs for the collapsed Paschal Carmody trial has been served on the Irish Examiner and The Irish Times by the Clare GP’s legal team, a court was told yesterday.

At Ennis Circuit Court, counsel for Dr Carmody, Lorcan Staines BL, said that the bill of costs from Dr Carmody’s solicitor, along with the bill of costs from Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and the Court Service, has been served on the two national newspapers.

The trial of Dr Carmody collapsed at Ennis Circuit Court on April 28 after Judge Donagh McDonagh deemed that articles that appeared in the two newspapers presented a potential risk of Dr Carmody not receiving a fair trial. The material in question concerned part of the proceedings conducted in the absence of the jury.

Dr Carmody, aged 62, of Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, had pleaded not guilty to nine charges of obtaining €16,554 by deception or under false pretences from the families of two terminally ill cancer patients at the East Clinic, Killaloe in 2001-02.

Dr Carmody and his wife, Dr Frieda Keane Carmody, were in court yesterday for the short hearing.

Counsel for the state, Stephen Coughlan BL, also said that the issue concerning the motion by the DPP to transfer the trial to Dublin still had to be decided by the court.

Judge McDonagh said that he would adjourn the issue of costs and a decision on the DPP’s application to a sitting of Ennis Circuit Court on October 27.