Judge: Doctors’ letters say and mean nothing

Doctors need to get 600 points in their Leaving Certificate so they can write letters about patients that say nothing and mean nothing, a circuit court judge has said.

That was the view expressed by Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin at Cork Circuit Appeals Court when a medical report was handed to him in respect of a man appealing a seven-month jail sentence for his “full on” verbal abuse of gardaí.

Stephen O’Donoghue, defending, handed in a doctor’s letter in the appeal by Stephen Wallace, aged 30, of 14 Deerpark Court, Friars Walk, Cork.

After reading the doctor’s report, which was not read out, Judge Ó Donnabháin said: “It is not unusual to get letters from doctors that say nothing and mean nothing. The reason you get 600 points is so that you can write letters that mean nothing and say nothing.”

He told Wallace if he was unwilling to pay fines then he would have to serve the seven months imposed on him at Cork District Court.

Mr O’Donoghue said Wallace was willing to pay fines. The judge imposed fines totalling €1,500 instead of the jail term for being threatening and abusive, failing to leave the scene, and failing to give his name and address when requested.

Garda Leslie Rice testified in the original hearing that at Grand Parade, Cork, at 3am on Nov 12, 2011, he and his colleague were dealing with a man causing an obstruction outside the Centra shop by begging on the street. While they were requesting this man to leave, Wallace intervened.

“Mr Wallace was repeatedly told to stop interfering with us. I directed him to leave. He called us a pack of useless c***s and said, ‘go back to your sovereign roots, you have no jurisdiction over me’.”