A LETTERKENNY man will go on trial next year accused of using threatening behaviour towards a nurse at the Emergency Department of the town’s hospital.
Lawyers for 38-year-old Oliver Quill made a legal application to have the charges thrown out at the District Court.
Mr Quill, from Lisnennan Court in Letterkenny, strenuously denies the single charge of using threatening and abusive behaviour at the A&E department of the hospital on September 2, 2012.
Solicitor Kieran Dillon argued before Judge Paul Kelly that his client was denying the charges.
However he had now learned that CCTV footage of what happened on the day of the alleged offence was not available.
Mr Quill, he said, had been relying on that CCTV footage for his defence because he believed it would show that he was not guilty.
“There will be a conflict of evidence between the alleged injured party Nurse Callaghan and Mr Quill,” said Mr Dillon.
He said there was a dispute over what happened after Mr Quill was treated at the hospital, that his client was moving from one location to another when issues arose.
The CCTV footage had been accidentally erased, said Mr Dillion and that had placed his client “at a major disadvantage.”
The lawyer went on: “There is a real risk of an unfair trial; given the sensitives of the location, evidence is crucial..”
He said it was still unclear “as to where this gremln occurred and the case should be stopped at this point.”
Inspector Goretti Sheridan however objected to the application.
She told Judge Kelly that Nurse Callaghan was in a position to give her own version of events to the court.
She said the lack of CCTV shouldn’t be allowed to prevent witnesses giving evidence in the case.
“As in many of these cases it stands or falls on the credibility of witnesses,” she said.
Judge Paul Kelly said case law was “explicit” in such matters and that cases should only be stopped in “exceptional cases” and he didn’t believe this was an exceptional case.
He set a trial date for May 19th next year.