Jury not to research case online, warns judge

A judge has told a jury they should only decide a case on evidence heard in court, and could not conduct their own research online.

The warning came as the prosecution case ended on the seventh day of the trial of a 59-year-old Castleisland man who denies sexually assaulting four girls.

John O’Connell, of Killaly, Castleisland Co Kerry, who worked for Kerry County Council, has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of sexual assault involving four girls from 2003 to 2008.

One of the alleged incidents took place in Mr O’Connell’s council van when the victim allegedly accompanied him to read the water meters with him, one of the girls claimed.

In the Circuit Criminal Court yesterday in Tralee, Mr O’Connell denied the girl had ever been in his van and said he “never ever abused those girls”. He told prosecutor Tom Rice an admission in one of a series of Garda interviews that she was and would write down meter readings for him was a mistake made when he was tired and hungry during questioning.

Seventeen of the allegations involve one girl, eight a second girl, three a third, and there is one charge involving a fourth girl.

In the course of her evidence last week, one of the complainants made reference to a social networking site on a specific date in 2003, saying another person was looking at the site at the time she was sexually assaulted by Mr O’Connell.

A difference arose as to when the site came into being and the defence invited the jury to search the term online the term to establish the date it was set up.

Yesterday, Detective Garda Tim O’Keeffe, an experienced investigator on social networking and internet sites, said the site was officially launched in July 2005.

There had been other social networking sites in existence in 2003, he agreed.

However, Judge Carroll Moran told the jury: “You decide this case only on evidence you hear in court — not on anything else.”

The jury could not conduct their own research on the history of networking sites and so on, he said.

“You have to rely only on evidence of what you hear in court,” the judge said.

In testimony yesterday, Mr O’Connell repeatedly told his counsel, Denis Vaughan Buckley: “I never ever sexually abused those girls.”

Asked about writing in his water meter book, he said all the handwritten water meter readings were his, and if handwriting differed it was because sometimes he had to write on his knee or crouch down when writing.

He denied the meter readings were written by one of the complainants. He also said other writings could have been made by anyone, as the book was “freely available to anyone”, including the complainant.