Coroner’s parking case is dismissed

Coroner for Cork County, Frank O'Connell successfully contested a case against him for parking briefly on a pedestrian area on Grand Parade which he claimed local authority vehicles parked on every day.

At the outset of the case at Cork District Court, visiting judge James O’Connor asked for an outline of the defence. He then turned to James O’Mahony, solicitor for Cork City Council, and said it was the smallest type of case and could take up to an hour to hear it.

“You won’t withdraw it will you? It is a very small matter,” Judge O’Connor put to Mr O’Mahony, who replied: “My instructions are to go on.”

Judge O’Connor said: “Mother of God we have lost all sense of perspective, regulations gone wild.”

Traffic warden Adrian Barrett testified that Mr O’Connell’s car was parked on the wide footpath outside his office on Grand Parade. Mr Barrett said the car was there for about five minutes at around 9.45am on Saturday, July 13, 2013.

Mr O’Connell said he parked outside the hotel that had closed down beside his office in order to pick up some rubbish for removal.

“I couldn’t have been 15 minutes. It was early on Saturday morning, I thought it was fairly harmless... I thought I was damned unlucky (to get a ticket),” he told his solicitor Joseph Cuddigan, adding that he would have gone around the back of the building but that the closure of a laneway by the council made that impossible.

He said the only way of getting something heavy out of his office would be by a crane with a big extension or by helicopter or by parking briefly outside. He said the library van did it every day, as did other city council vehicles. He said he never saw them being ticketed.

Mr O’Mahony said council vehicles were ticketed in the past for such parking, the difference being that they paid on-the-spot fines.

He said if he had known the motorist was going to suggest the spot directly outside the old hotel was private property, he would have brought documents to court showing it was public property.

Judge O’Connor said at the end of the case: “I don’t think it would be fair to mark a criminal conviction for something like that. I dismiss.”