A judge has ruled that a Galway farmer accused of assaulting Fianna Fáil Minister Anne Rabbitte when throwing a bag of cow dung towards her at a public meeting “has a case to answer”.
At Ennis District Court on Wednesday, Judge Alec Gabbett made his comment when rejecting an application by defence solicitor Daragh Hassett to dismiss the assault case against his client, Joseph Baldwin.
Mr Hassett made his application at the end of the State’s evidence during a one-day hearing at Ennis District Court last month.
After Judge Gabbett issued his ruling to not accede to the defence application, Mr Hassett told Judge Gabbett that the defence will now be going into evidence. Judge Gabbett said that he will hear the remainder of the case later on Wednesday at Ennis District Court.
The judge said the best evidence in the case was the CCTV which showed that the sealed bag of cow dung did not hit Ms Rabbitte, but shows her moving to avoid the bag.
Judge Gabbett said the State assault case relied on Ms Rabbitte’s apprehension under Section 2 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act that she was going to be struck by the bag. The Minister was present in court for Wednesday's ruling.
In the case, Mr Baldwin (39), of Ballyaneen, Gort, denies assaulting Anne Rabbitte on January 4th, 2023, at a public meeting concerning a planned biogas plant at O’Sullivan’s Hotel in Gort, contrary to Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
In evidence last month, Ms Rabbitte, who is a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Department of Children, wept in the witness box as she recalled the incident.
She said that before Mr Baldwin threw the bag towards her, he said to her "I am not forgetting about you, there is one for you Rabbitte”.
After the bag fell on the ground beside her, Ms Rabbitte said: “I didn’t know if the two legs were going to go from under me.”
“Someone picked it up and said that it was a bag of s**t.”
Ms Rabbitte said: “I wanted to scream my head off because no one said that what was happening was wrong.”
The Minister said she distracted herself at the meeting by taking out her phone and sending out a tweet “I can’t believe a bag of sh1t has been thrown at me”.
On going to the local Garda station to have what occurred ‘noted’, MS Rabbitte said: “It is tough, we do what we do, but I love it, and it is a privilege and I apologise judge to be bawlin’ my way through it, but someone had to speak up.”
In a prepared statement to gardaí read out in court, Mr Baldwin said that he went to the meeting “with no intention to harm anyone”.
Mr Baldwin said that the first bag fell two to three feet from Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon and he threw the second bag in the direction of Ms Rabbitte and “it brushed off someone else and fell on the floor near her”.
Mr Baldwin said that earlier that day he “went down to the farmyard and put dry cow dung into ziplock bags. There was no smell or odour off the bags and I made sure that they were secure.”
“They were very light – like a featherweight. I thought all the TDs and councillors would be at the top table where I could leave the bags in front of them.”
On why he decided to bring the bags, he said: “On the evening in question I said to myself, ‘I have had enough’, something had to be done for them to listen and show them that it was unacceptable for the community to be treated like this.”
He said he went to the meeting with “no intention to harm anyone.”
“In my own mind, I thought that it might be a way of getting through to two Government TDs that they were clearly not helping or listening to the people of our own community.”
He said: “I am not apologising because I believe that all I was doing was making the views of the community known and I didn’t hurt anybody in the process."
“I am just a normal, decent person thinking about my community and the people who live in it."
The case is to continue later on Wednesday.
