A Limerick man who was jailed for eight and a half years after drugs worth almost €140,000 were found in the boot of the car he was driving has had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday that a tip-off phone call relaying information to the investigating garda that there was a large quantity of drugs in the Toyota Corolla car should not have been admitted as evidence at trial.
Noel Noonan (46), of North Claughan Road, Garryowen, Limerick was convicted by a unanimous jury verdict of having drugs with a value greater than €13,000 for sale or supply and was sentenced to nine years with the final six months suspended by Judge Mary O’Malley Costello on June 19th, 2023.
Mr Noonan was alone in the blue Toyota Corolla when it was stopped by Garda Dave Farragher on the N7 motorway close to Kildare. He was stopped because the Automatic Number Plate Recognition System installed on the garda’s patrol car detected that the vehicle which he was driving was not taxed.
He said the car belonged to his girlfriend and when asked for insurance, he retrieved a certificate from the glovebox. However, the certificate revealed he was not insured to drive the car and, in addition, Mr Noonan could not produce a driving licence.
The garda decided to seize the vehicle and a tow truck was secured to bring the car to a compound near Naas with Mr Noonan travelling by train back to Limerick.
When Garda Faragher opened the boot of the car at the compound, he found a quantity of Xannax drugs and a tightly packed package which, when forensically examined, was found to contain amphetamine. The drugs found in the car had a market value of €137,858.
When interviewed, Mr Noonan denied knowledge of the drugs in the boot of the car indicating that he “saw no drugs”.
Lawyers for Mr Noonan had argued at his appeal that the trial judge erred in ruling that the statement of an inspector involved in the case was not hearsay and submitted the judge was wrong to admit this statement as evidence at trial.
Quashing the conviction on Tuesday, the three-judge Court of Appeal said the trial judge had permitted Garda Farragher to give evidence before the jury of a phone call he had with an inspector who informed him that he had received confidential information to the effect that there was a large quantity of drugs in the Toyota Corolla.
Delivering judgment, Ms Justice Tara Burns said the trial judge had permitted this evidence so that Garda Farragher could explain the complete circumstances of his reason for searching the car before the jury and because she viewed this evidence as probative.
She said Mr Noonan had asserted that this was a hearsay statement and should not have been admitted before the jury, particularly in the absence of the inspector giving evidence.
Ms Justice Tara Burns said the manner in which the trial judge handled this evidence and the instructions she gave to the jury was “flawed” for a number of reasons. She said a hearsay statement which the inspector allegedly received from a confidential source, an allegedly passed on to Garda Farragher, was admitted “as a plank of the respondent’s case”.
She said this was a breach of the rule against hearsay.
The judge said it seemed to the court that the incorrect admission of the hearsay evidence had a “significant prejudicial effect” on Mr Noonan’s case and created “an unfairness” with respect to the jury’s consideration of the defence case.
Ms Justice Burns said accordingly, the three-judge panel was of the view that the two grounds of appeal related to hearsay evidence should be upheld.
Quashing the original conviction, the judge said the court would send the matter back to Naas Circuit Court where it could “take its place”.
