Gardaí urge public not to post film of crimes

Two teenagers were yesterday arrested in connection with an assault on Aston Quay, Dublin, During Monday’s St Patrick’s Day parade.

Two males, aged 16 and were arrested in the Dublin 2 area and are being detained under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 at Pearse Street Garda Station.

Meanwhile, gardaí have warned members of the public that posting footage of crimes they have filmed to social media sites could jeopardise prosecutions.

The warning follows the online distribution of disturbing footage from the fringes of the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin last Monday when an apparently unprovoked attack on a young man was filmed by at least one bystander.

The footage quickly went viral, prompting gardaí to issue a request via Twitter for the images not to be posted or retweeted for what they described as “data protection issues”.

However, the response to the request on Twitter was less than sympathetic, with many saying the request was impractical and pointless or that sharing the footage was within their rights.

The investigation into the attack is continuing and the footage captured has helped identify individuals involved but gardaí yesterday repeated their call for witnesses to such incidents to think twice about sharing them on social media.

“Gardaí are aware of the benefits of social media but we are also aware that comments to a video may falsely identify suspected offenders,” the press office said.

It added there were protection issues around under 18s who might be caught on film — young offenders are not identified in the courts and victims would require parental consent for their images to be used.

The press office said it would be appreciated if any footage of incidents captured on camera was passed on to investigating officers rather than posted online.

Leading barrister Tony McGillicuddy said, however, there is a need for the gardaí to better educate the public about the potential consequences of posting criminal incidents on social media.

“The worries for the gardaí might be two-fold — that if the footage is spreading online, that people might be misidentified and might be singled out wrongly as being perpetrators,” he said.

“There is a special concern that if people are spreading it or commentating online, that it might affect any future criminal cases. It could be used to argue the accused would not get a fair trial or it might delay a trial to allow the fade factor to take effect.”

The 40-second film of the assault was posted on Facebook and Twitter but was later removed after inappropriate comments sparked criticisms by other viewers.