Court of Criminal Appeal dismisses appeal against conviction for murder and burglary, upholding trial judge's handling of evidence.

[2006] IECCA 165

THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

55/06

Hardiman J

Hanna J.

Feeney J.

Between:

THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

Prosecutor/Respondent

and

ANTHONY BARNES

Defendant/Applicant

JUDGMENT of the Court delivered the 21st day of December, 2006, by Mr. Justice Hardiman.

1. Mr. Richard (Dick) Forrestal aged 69 years was stabbed to death in his house at Carrigavantry, Tramore, Co. Waterford, on the

afternoon of the 21st July 2005. He was killed by Anthony Barnes, the applicant for leave to appeal in these proceedings. Barnes,

together with another man called Andrew Halligan had come to the house on that day to burgle it having first checked it out

sometime previously. They knew that a man lived alone there, that he was an old man and they assumed from the fact that he was

engaged in the equine business that he had money. They apparently entered the house in the belief that there was no one there,

which was true. But just after four minutes past two on the afternoon of the 21st July Mr. Forrestal returned to his house. He was

dropped off there by a friend, Mr. Louis Murphy, a very active octogenarian, precisely at that time. Mr. Murphy then went off to get

diesel for his car and to collect another person: the two of them together with Mr. Forrestal were going to have lunch in the latter’s

house. Mr. Forrestal had been dropped off so that he could start preparing the lunch, he having bought some fish for that purpose.

2. When Mr. Forrestal and the other person, Mr. Kent, returned to the house at twenty five past two they found an appalling

situation. The outer door “was driven off the hinges” and when the inner door was opened its travel was stopped by the dead body of

Mr. Forrestal, lying with the feet against the door.

3. There was no account of what had happened in the house other than that of the applicant, Anthony Barnes. His fellow burglar,

Halligan, a young man with more than thirty convictions for burglary alone, claimed to have left the house before the stabbing. Barnes

account will be discussed in detail below. It is, however, common case than Barnes and Halligan were in the house to commit

burglary. Barnes defence was one of self defence: he claimed in statement to the Gardai that he and Halligan had been disturbed by

Mr. Forrestal who had (his accounts vary) either come at him with a knife or had come at him and then left the room in which he was

confronting Barnes and got a knife, or come at him, dragged him from a window through which he was trying to escape, threw him

onto a bed and left the room to get a knife. Barnes claims to have disarmed Mr. Forrestal and stabbed him to death in self defence.

The principles of law bearing on this situation – an admitted burglar who slays the householder in purported self defence – compose

the substance of this appeal.

Detailed facts

4. Mr. Forrestal was a bachelor who had lived in Carrigavantry all his life. He had some rental property and a herd of cattle but his

principal interest and occupation was the breeding of horses. “He was a horse man through and through”, according to his friend Mr.

Murphy. He was a successful breeder and had horses in training who apparently raced with some success. But he was a man of

remarkably simple life living in a small house with only basic equipment. He was a religious man, a teetotaller, devoted to his animals

and one who rose at 5.30 each morning. He was a kindly and popular figure if a little eccentric. Horses apart, his standard of living

was far below what he could easily have afforded. For the most part he lived alone but for some months Mr Murphy had been living

with him. Shortly before the events which are the subject of the case Mr. Murphy had moved to another house belonging to Mr.

Forrestal because a family member was expected to move in with Mr. Forrestal. Though eccentric in the way described above, there

is no doubt that he was more than competent in business, as a farmer and above all as a horse breeder. In Mr. Murphy’s evidence he

summed up Mr. Forrestal’s lifestyle with understated eloquence “Dick lived in his own world – and it was excellent”. He was a strong,

healthy and active man for his years.

5. On the day of the killing Mr. Forrestal rose at his usual hour and later had breakfast with Mr. Murphy in the house. It may be of

some significance, in view of what later happened, that he followed his invariable custom of clearing and washing the knives and other

items used for breakfast and put them back on the table. He then travelled, with Mr Murphy, some distance to a yard where he had

horses in training. It should be noted that they travelled in Mr. Murphy’s car leaving Mr. Forrestal’s 1999 Mondeo outside his house.

6. They remained at the trainers’ until 12 o’clock. At that time they left to attend a funeral of a local girl who had been tragically

killed in a bomb explosion in Turkey. They left the funeral at about a quarter to two and returned to the house after a small detour.

Mr Murphy put the time of their arrival back at the house precisely four mines past two o’clock in the afternoon. Mr Murphy did not

then enter the house but simply let Mr. Forrestal out of the car and after a little badinage drove off to collect Mr. Kent as already

explained.

7. The foregoing details of Mr. Forrestal’s personality and way of life, and his activities on the day of his death, may have some

relevance in considering the account of events later offered by Mr. Barnes. It may also be noted that, according to Mr. Murphy whom

there is no reason to doubt, Mr. Forrestal had suffered some four or five burglaries in the past. He did not keep any substantial

amount of money around the house but used cheques for his transactions apart from ordinary shopping. He would keep the money for

that sort of purpose on him. The knife with which he was killed was one of two identical knives which he and Mr. Forrestal used when

eating, and which were kept on the kitchen table when out of use.

8. Mr. Murphy described the condition of the house, as he saw after finding the body, as being “like the war effort passed through. It

was in – it was tossed, hopelessly tossed”. He said “the house was in a – was ransacked. Dick’s bed was upside down. Presses were

knocked over. Tables were turned upside down. My bedroom across the way that had nothing to do with Dick’s house was ransacked.

My bed was turned over. My table was turned over. There was a beautiful mahogany wardrobe. Three four doors were tore off it, for

whatever they were searching for.”

9. The television was upside down on the floor. The door to Mr. Forrestal’s room was off its hinges. All this suggests a violent and

frenzied search.

10. It appears that the first witnesses to come on the scene – Mr. Murphy, some gardaí and perhaps others, were of the opinion that

Mr. Forrestal had been shot because of the size of the wounds apparent. The State Pathologist, Dr. Marie Cassidy, who examined the

body later in the evening of the 21st, was of the opinion that he had been stabbed, and this turned out to be accurate.

11. The circumstances in which these wounds were inflicted are the factual nub of the case. They only eye witness is the burglar

who inflicted them, Anthony Barnes. He did not give evidence but made various statements to the gardaí.

The wounds of the deceased.

12. This topic requires some attention having regard to the contentions subsequently made by Mr. Barnes.

13. The main injuries were to the trunk. There were four stab wounds and a puncture wound. Two of the injuries were deeply

penetrating and between them injured both lungs, the aorta, the main blood vessels and the oesophagus or gullet and the windpipe.

There were also minor incised wounds or cuts to the left forearm and the hand, consistent with being defensive wounds.

14. The main wounds were as follows:-

(a) A stab wound to the right of the chest three centimetres below the right nipple. It was diagonal, measuring 2.3 centimetres. It

tracked downwards and backwards. It had penetrated the rib cage between the fifth and sixth ribs slicing into the upper body of the

sixth rib. It continued to the right lung where it ended. The anatomical depth of this wound was seventeen centimetres.

The other wounds, being three stab wounds and a puncture wound were over the front of the left shoulder. They were clustered

together in a small area about three by two inches. Only one of these penetrated deeply. This was:

(b) A horizontal wound of 3.5 centimetres just below the collar bone. The direction of the wound was downwards and backwards. This

wound penetrated the rib cage between the first and second ribs and detached a thin sliver of bone from the upper border of the

second rib. From there on there were two separate tracks, one continuing down and across the top of the upper lobe of the left lung,

going on into the aorta. The second track continued across the body through the left hand side of the wind pipe and into the

oesophagus. The unchallenged evidence in relation to this wound was that the knife had been partly withdrawn and then plunged

back in again, thereby creating the second track. The maximum anatomical depth of this wound was fifteen centimetres.

(c) The next wound was also on the left hand side of the chest four centimetres below the one described at (b) above. This was a

vertical wound, running up and down, and measuring two and a half centimetres. It went from the deceased’s right towards the left

arm pit. It did not touch any major structures or organs. Its anatomical depth was ten centimetres.

(d) The next wound was just below the left collar bone, one centimetre above the previous wound. This was a shallow wound 1.2

centimetres wide which did not injure any major structure or organ. Behind this wound was a shallow puncture wound.

15. Apart from these wounds to the chest, there was a 3.5 centimetre incised wound on the back of the left forearm, twelve

centimetres above the wrist. There was also an injury to the base of the left index finger 1.5 centimetres long.

16. Internal examination of the body showed mainly the damage from the two deeply penetrating wounds, (a) and (b) above. The first

was on the right hand side of the chest and the second on the left. The right sixth and left second ribs were damaged. The left chest

cavity was awash with fluid, with a lesser quantity on the right chest cavity. The trachea or wind pipe showed a 1.2 centimetres stab

wound through its left side with abundant blood in the airways. The pathologist said “in other words blood had tracked in and he was

choking on that blood”.

17. The pathologist concluded that the deceased had died after a knife assault. The cuts on the left forearm and hand were

consistent with defence injuries. She explained that term as follows:

“When someone is being attacked, if they try and make attempts to defend themselves from that attack, the natural

thing to do is to bring your arms up in front of your body to shield your face or the vital parts of your body. Usually the

forearm can be brought up or hand can be brought up. If the attackers strike the arm or the forearm of a hand then we

wills see injuries in certain areas. So it is not uncommon in an assault to find injuries along the outside of the forearm or

the back of the forearm or the back of the hand and sometimes on the palm of the hand. And particularly in knife

assaults, it is not unusual for the person who is being attacked to try the grab the wrist or the knife and as they do so

sustain some cuts to the hand. So the injuries that are found on the forearm and in the hand can sometimes be classified

as being defence injuries, caused when the person was trying to defend himself”.

18. Dr. Cassidy said that the most relevant wound had penetrated the rib cage and sliced across and through the left lung to injure

the aorta or main blood vessel. “There was a large gaping hole in the aorta which had poured blood into the chest cavity. He had lost

a considerable quantity of blood from the injuries. There was a substantial quantity of blood just under one litre, inside his chest. His

clothing was soaked in blood and there had been a pool of blood on the floor beside his head when he was found. There were also

wounds in his wind pipe and gullet and blood had leaked into both causing him to choke on blood”.

19. From certain aspects of the blood staining, the pathologist concluded that the deceased had been upright, at least temporarily,

while he was bleeding. She said “the injury to the left forearm may have been caused as the knife was being plunged down towards

his chest over the obstructing forearm if his arm was held in front of his body in a defensive manner. The injuries to his left hand

suggest that at some time during the assault he had grasped the knife blade. There were no injuries, no knife injuries, on the right

hand”.

20. The doctor then drew attention to an area of fresh bruising on the inside of the right upper arm. This, she said “could have been

caused by the arm being gripped and held firmly. It is possible that during the knife assault he had been grabbed or held by his right

arm with such force that he was unable to use his right arm to defend himself”.

21. Dr. Cassidy described this area of bruising as “blotchy bruising, pale blue bruising on the inside of his arm, just below the armpit”.

22. She said that that area of the arm “is an area which we would classify as being a protected area, because it’s not the place

where would find injuries if you bump into something of if someone bumps you or strikes you. This part is protected by the inside of

your chest. So to find an injury on the inside of the upper arm means it has been deliberately inflicted usually. Therefore, the most

common way in which this type of injury is caused is by someone grabbing you by the arm”.

23. Dr. Cassidy said that this suggested to her the possibility of more than one assailant.

24. In cross-examination Dr. Cassidy agreed that the knife produced to her, of which more will be said later, was consistent with

causing the wounds she found on Mr. Forrestal.

25. Speaking of the vital organs injured, she said that the damage to them wouldn’t necessarily cause the deceased to have

collapsed immediately. “He would be capable of movement for a short period of time. He had a very large wound in his aorta. That’s

going to lose a loss of blood very rapidly. It is very likely he is going to collapse because he has lost such a large quantity of blood.

He could be capable of some movement immediately afterwards,” before, that is, he choked on the blood.

26. Dr. Cassidy confirmed to defence counsel that the deceased “might have even been capable of continuing to struggle with his

attacker for a short time before he collapsed”. In relation to the bruising to the arm, she confirmed that it could have been caused in

the course of the struggle. The wounds to the left forearm and hand were consistent with being caused during a struggle for or with

the knife. The more serious of these wounds might reflect the parties moving in the course of the struggle. The pattern of bleeding

onto the clothing suggested that the deceased had been upright at some point before he collapsed. The bruising was mostly fresh

and all would have occurred within 24 hours of death. The bruises had the appearance of having occurred at around the same time.

The bruising to the left inner arm, specifically, consisted of two areas, one measuring 5 by 8 centimetres and just below that an area

measuring 4 by 3 centimetres. She said “It’s an indication that that there’s been pressure applied to the inside of the upper arm and

most likely that’s by the fingers”.

The defendant’s versions of events.

27. The defendant did not give evidence at his trial. However he made a number of statements, and had a number of questions and

answer sessions with the gardaí. All of these, the inculpatory and exculpatory parts, were before the jury and it was conceded that

the jury could accept or reject the statements or any part of them. However, for reasons elaborated below, the defence submitted

on the hearing of this appeal that this Court, unlike the jury, is bound to approach the legal issues in the case on the basis that the

defendant’s account of the facts was true. Apart from the legal issues discussed below this has the elementary difficulty that the

defendant at different times gave different accounts on various matters, some of them centrally important.

28. The defendant went to a garda station in Waterford, accompanied by his father, on the afternoon of the 22nd June, the day after

the killing. Very shortly afterwards he made a statement in which he described going by himself to rob Mr. Forrestal’s house. On this

occasion he said:

“I was about to leave the house when somebody came in and grabbed me. He started swinging me around. I ran into the

bedroom and tried to break out the window. He pulled me back from the window and I landed on the bed. He went down

to the kitchen and got a kitchen knife. I tried to barricade the door and he pushed it in. He came into me with the knife

and tried to stab me. I caught his hand. I stuck the knife into him. I think it was just once. I ran out the door. It was a

complete accident. I did not mean to kill him.”

29. Later on the same afternoon the defendant was questioned by two detectives. To these, he continued to insist that he was by

himself at the time. He gave them further details of the robbery. He said that he had kicked in the outer door of the house and broken

in the second door with a hammer which he brought from the yard. He said he was in the kitchen when the man came in, standing

near the table. This may be significant in that the knives were on the kitchen table. He said that the man grabbed him by the

shoulders. He, Barnes, ran into the box room:

“He had me trapped there”.

30. He said that he had put his foot through the window and tried to get through the window “but he pulled me back.” He then said:

“I was on the bed. He ran to the kitchen and he came back with a knife. I tried to barricade the room but he pushed it in.

The knife had a black handle. He busted the door in on top of me. He came at me with a knife. He had it in his right hand.

I caught his hand with my right hand as I am right handed. I tried to get past him to get out. I was trying to get the knife

off him. I got the knife off him. It was a matter of seconds. I just did that.”

31. He there demonstrated how he stabbed the man with the knife.

32. In this interview, beginning about 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the 22nd, he conceded that he had stabbed the man “two or three

times”. He said that he had dropped the knife in the house. He said that he had later heard on the news that the man had died. He

then burnt his clothes in a fireplace at home. He told his mother the next morning what had happened. Asked to describe how he tried

to stop the man pushing in the door of the box room he said “I had the palms of my hands against the door”. When he was asked “Did

he say anything to you?” he said:

“No. He was in a rage. He shouted ‘I am going to kill you’.”

33. He said that after he had told his mother she had telephoned his father who had told him to give himself up and accompanied him

to the garda station.

34. The defendant gave a further interview to gardaí at about 6.30pm on the same day. He denied going to the Waterford dole office

to sign on on the previous day. He described driving to the house. He said he had stolen £20 from the Mondeo car. He described

searching the house “I searched around for a good while”. Asked specifically whether there was anybody else in the house with him

he said “No there was nobody with me. Fuck it anyway I’ll only get ten years.”

35. A major change was the account of where the knife came from. He said he had run into the box room and “Yer man got a knife

and came in after me”. Asked where the man got the knife he said “He picked it up off the table”. He said the table was in front of

the door of the box room. He protested that he only went to rob the house “There was no attempt to kill the man”. Speaking of the

door to the box room he said “I pulled it in when I saw him with the knife. He said that the door closed into him. He said “He hit the

door by the hinges with his shoulders and came in on top of me”. Asked to describe what happened next he said:

“I killed him then, he came in with a knife to stab me, I got the knife off him and I stabbed him”.

36. He said he didn’t know how many times he’d stabbed him but it was more than once. He couldn’t say if they were deep stabs

because “I was blank”. He did not see the man fall. He dropped the knife in the room where he stabbed him. He left the house by the

front door. He did not put a coat over his (Mr. Forrestal’s) head. He then alleged that he had driven away by back roads, come out

onto the Cork road “turned left into the industrial estate and got out of the car and ran across a glass factory” and thus home. Asked

why he burnt his clothes he said:

“I watched the news and I saw your man was dead so I burnt the clothes”.

37. The defendant gave a further interview beginning at about a quarter to eleven on the night of the 22nd July.

38. On this occasion he told the guards that he had never seen Mr. Forrestal before the previous day. It was put to him that Andrew

Halligan had been with him on the burglary to which he said “I want to see his statement first”. He next admitted that Andrew Halligan

had driven him to the Forrestal house, and admitted that it was Halligan who had kicked in the window of the box room and not

himself as he had previously said. He admitted that he had told his mother what he had done the previous night, and not that

morning. He said that Halligan had called on him that night and said that the man was “after dying” and that they should hand

themselves in. He had told Halligan that he had bitten Mr. Forrestal on the hand, but that wasn’t true. Asked why he had said it he

said “I don’t know, because I’m a dope”. He said that a cut which was on his right middle finger was caused by his running through

bushes the previous day.

39. There was a further interview with gardaí the following morning. On that occasion he said that he had gone out to Mr. Forrestal’s

house on the previous Tuesday “just having a look”. He said he had met Mr. Forrestal and asked him were there rabbits in the field.

Mr. Forrestal had warned not to let any greyhounds out around his land “or I’ll shoot them”. Asked again to explain what had

happened he said:

“Andrew Halligan was inside the box room/bedroom. A man comes in the front door. He grabs me where I have shown you

on the map. I broke free and got into the bedroom/box room. Andrew helped me hold the door for a while, then the man

bursts open the door and goes back to the table. He pushed open the door a bit and then he went back for a knife on the

table. As he was doing this Andrew kicked out the window and got out of the house. The man then burst open the door

off its hinges. The door came down on top of me. I came out from behind the door, then he came at me with the knife,

the door is laid on the bed behind me. He tries to stab me with the knife”.

Aspects of Barnes’s account.

40. It will be seen that these accounts vary in a number of ways. The first is whether he was alone or with another person, later

identified as Halligan. While he was denying that anyone else had been present, he claimed that it was he who had kicked out the

window, (actually kicked out by Halligan, and was in the act of trying to get through it when Mr. Forrestal grabbed him. He later

changed this account, when the presence of Halligan was admitted. He said that he was in the kitchen (where the knives were) when

the man came in. He first said that the man had left him on the bed in the box room and gone to get the knife, later that the man had

taken up the knife after they had struggled in the kitchen. He said that he had dropped the knife in the room, but later agreed that

he had taken with him and dropped it in a field. He said that the man, obviously Mr. Forrestal had said “I’ll kill you”, but he said this

only in answer to a question as to whether he had said anything. He said that he had tried to stop the door being pushed in with his

(Barnes) palms against the door but no marks of this were found by the gardaí. The door was found off its hinges, but so were other

doors in the house. This damage had not been present when Mr. Forrestal and Mr. Murphy left the house. Evidence (to which

objection was taken on other grounds), established that Barnes had in fact signed on at the dole office though he denied this. Finally,

he said he had gone home after escaping from the area but there was evidence (excluded by the learned trial judge and discussed

below) suggesting that he and Halligan had gone to rob a collection box from other premises on their way home.

41. In falsely claiming that he had kicked out the window and tried to escape through it, Barnes was setting up a story, subsequently

admitted to be false, which placed him in physical retreat from the premises at the time Mr. Forrestal laid hands on him. On this

account, his lawyers were to claim, even if originally an aggressor he had ceased to be one. If this was so, his lawyers would later

claim, it was impossible to justify the use of any force at all on him whether for arrest purposes or otherwise. But this account was

not true, as he subsequently admitted, and it remains a matter for speculation why he told not merely a lie (he was, after all, already

lying about their being no other person present) but one specifically calculated to support his eventual plea of self defence.

42. It is of course beyond dispute that Barnes held the knife which was produced in the trial court and killed Mr. Forrestal with it.

There is no forensic evidence that Mr. Forrestal ever had the knife at all during his struggle with Barnes. Barnes was in the kitchen,

where the knife was on the table, when Mr. Forrestal came in the door of the house: he thus had every opportunity to arm himself

with the knife. In his first and last accounts to the gardaí, unlike the others, he claims that it was Mr. Forrestal who left him while he

was in the box room to go and get the knife. He gives no account of what he was doing when this was going on and it is plainly an

account that a jury might have thought improbable or impossible.

43. Another factual aspect which plainly had significance for the jury was the evidence of the bruising to the inside of Mr. Forrestal’s

right arm. What the pathologist said about this has already been set out. In the course of their deliberations, at 4.36pm on the 8th

March, 2006, the jury asked to be reminded of Dr. Cassidy’s evidence in relation to “the struggle, where the man was being held… it’s

where he is being held by the arm. The bruise on his arm”. It will be noted that the accused in his statement gave no account of any

event which could account for this bruise. Finally, it will be recalled, Barnes claimed that during the stabbing “I was blank”. If this is

so (and it might explain his varying accounts) his statements are virtually worthless.

The legal issues.

44. The learned trial judge charged the jury on the central issue in the case, Barne’s defence of self defence, wholly along the lines of

the judgments in this Court in the classic case on the topic, People A.G. v. Christopher Dwyer [1972] IR 416. In the course of doing

so he made what he himself described as “a very, very serious error” as to the burden of proof in self defence cases. This error, and

the attempt made to correct it, will be discussed below. But the salient feature of the charge is that it treated self defence in

substantially the same way as it would be treated in the case of an attack on the street, or in a public house or in any other place

and gave only incidental significance to the fact that this particular confrontation took place in the deceased gentleman’s house and

while the applicant was in the act of burgling it. The prosecution say that this was a serious error: a charge correct in law would

have been much less favourable to the accused. Accordingly, they say “ the only conceivable error in the direction of the trial judge

on the issue of self defence enured in favour of the defence”. The defence say that Mr. Barnes, though a burglar, was not an

aggressive one and that the mere act of burglary is not in itself an act of aggression. Accordingly, they say that it would have been

unlawful of Mr. Forrestal to respond with any force or threat of force at all to Mr. Barne’s intrusion into his dwellinghouse. Accordingly,

if he did respond with any force, Barnes was entitled to defend himself. The prosecution, on the other hand, and in the words of

prosecuting counsel at the trial, said:

“One is getting into very very dangerous waters when one tells the jury that Anthony Barnes was entitled to inflict

injuries of the kind he did, apprehending that Mr. Forrestal would do something less than inflict fatal force on him because

Mr. Forrestal was entitled to inflict substantial force on Anthony Barnes and to do so perfectly lawfully. And this is an

unusual feature of this case. And in my respectful submission, that makes it very dangerous to indicate that Anthony

Barnes was in some way in the same position as a person attacked by the average person in the street. He wasn’t”.

Burglary and permissible responses to it.

45. This conflict between the parties makes it necessary to analyse the nature of burglary in a dwellinghouse and the permissible

responses to it. It will then be necessary to compare with the result of this exercise with the legal instructions given by the learned

trial judge to the jury in this case.

46. Counsel on both sides have spared no diligence or ingenuity in researching their respective positions and cases ancient and

modern, and from various far flung countries have been urged upon us. This expenditure of labour was necessary because, curiously

enough, there is no modern Irish authority on this topic: counsel for both sides were agreed upon that proposition. This makes it

necessary for the Court to examine, in the contemporary Irish context, a problem which has troubled courts of law since time

immemorial: the nature of the offence of burglary and the permitted response of a victim of that offence.

Burglary.

47. Burglary is presently constituted by s.12(1)(a) of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001:

“12. - (1) A person is guilty of burglary if he or she -

(a) enters any building or part of a building as a trespasser and with intent to commit an arrestable offence, or

(b) having entered any building or part of a building as a trespasser, commits or attempts to commit any such offence

therein.

(2) Reference in subsection (1) to a building shall apply also to an inhabited vehicle or vessel and to any other inhabited

temporary or movable structure, and shall apply to any such vehicle, vessel or structure at times when the person having

a habitation in it is not there as well as at times when the person is there.

(3) A person guilty of burglary is liable on conviction on indictment to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14

years or both.

(4) In this section ‘arrestable offence’ means an offence for which a person of full age and not previously convicted may

be punished by imprisonment for a term of five years or by a more severe penalty.”

48. Barnes and Halligan were charged as follows, in count 2 of the indictment of the present case:

“Anthony Barnes and Andrew Halligan, on the 21st day of July, 2005, in the county of Waterford, entered as trespassers

a building, being the dwellinghouse of Richard Forrestal, with intent to commit the arrestable offence of theft therein”.

49. Each defendant pleaded guilty to this offence. It is clear from the information given by Barnes to the gardaí that he knew that the

premises were a dwellinghouse, that they were the home of Mr. Forrestal, who was an elderly man, and that he travelled to the

dwellinghouse that morning with the intention, formed some days earlier, of breaking into it and stealing from it. It may be important

to note that this constituted him not merely a trespasser but a trespasser in a dwellinghouse which he had entered forcibly with

intent to steal from it.

50. In acting in this way, Barnes was not merely committing a crime but was invading Mr. Forrestal’s constitutional rights. Article 40.5

of the Constitution, under the heading “Inviobility of the dwelling” provides as follows:

“The dwelling of every citizen is invioble and shall not be forcibly entered save in accordance with law”.

51. This is a modern Irish formulation of a principle deeply felt throughout historical time and in every area to which the Common Law

has penetrated. This is that a person’s dwellinghouse is far more than bricks and mortar; it is the home of a person and his or her

family, dependents or guests (if any) and is entitled to a very high degree of protection at law for this reason. Most of the cases on

the topic relate to the restrictions which this puts on the State itself (most obviously the police force) in entering a person’s home.

But the home is, of course, also entitled to protection from criminals. This form of protection, indeed, was to the forefront of the

concern of law makers in the early days of the Common Law.

52. Before going further, it is necessary to note an anomaly in our law. There is a recent statutory codification of the law relating,

amongst other things, to self defence and defence of property in the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act, 1997, and in

particular Sections 18 to 20 thereof. But this applies only, as the title suggests, to the use of non-lethal force. Where homicide has

occurred (whether of the burglar, or the proprietor in a case like this) one must still resort to the Common Law. But useful analogies

can, on certain aspects of the topic, be drawn from the Statute. Section 18 provides:

“18.- (1) The use of force by a person for any of the following purposes, if only such as is reasonable in the

circumstances as he or she believes them to be, does not constitute an offence -

(a) to protect himself or herself or a member of the family of that person or another from injury, assault or detention

caused by a criminal act; or

(b) to protect himself or herself or (with the authority of that other) another from trespass to the person; or

(c) to protect his or her property form appropriation, destruction or damage caused by a criminal act or from trespass or

infringement; or

(d) to protect property belonging to another from appropriation, destruction or damage caused by a criminal act or (with

the authority of that other) from trespass or infringement; or

(e) to prevent crime or a breach of the peace.

(2) ‘use of force’ in subsection (1) is defined and extended by section 20.”

53. Each side of the present litigation has put before the Court many statements of the original Common Law position of burglars and

householders. The latter term, of course, embraces the owner or lawful occupier of every sort of premises from a palace to a shack

and regardless of whether he is the full owner, a tenant or a licensee or other form of permissive occupant. In a very ancient case

the following was said:

“It was presented that a man killed another in his own house se defendendo. It was asked whether the deceased came to

have robbed him; for in such a case may kill another though it be not in self defence and the twelve said not. Wherefore

they were charged to tell the way how it happened, whereby he should receive the King’s pardon”. (1329) F Coron. 305.

54. In the first edition of Halsburys Laws of England (1909), the following appears at p.587:

“The owner of a dwellinghouse, or any of his servants or lodgers, or any other person within the house, is justified in using

force towards a person who is manifestly attempting to commit a burglary there, or to invade and enter it by violence; if

the owner in the use of such force kills such person he does not commit any crime.

A person lawfully defending himself or his habitation is not bound to retreat or to give way to the aggressor before killing

him; he is even entitled to follow him and to endeavour to capture him; but if the aggressor is captured or is retreating

without offering resistance and is then killed, the person killing him is guilty of murder”.

55. Statements to similar effect were to be found in various criminal law books of which the 26th edition of Archbold at p.887 may be

cited:

“In defence of a man’s house, the owner or his family may kill a trespasser who would forcibly dispossess him of it, in the

same manner as he might, by law, kill in self defence a man who attacks him personally; with this distinction, however,

that in defending his home he did not retreat, as in other cases of self defence, for that would be giving up his house to

his adversary.”

56. This passage was quoted with approval in R. v. Hussey [1924] 18 Criminal Appeal Reports 160. There, a man was convicted of an

assault offence. He was in a room which was the habitation of himself and his family when the landlady, who had served an invalid

notice to quit, attempted with two companions forcibly to eject him. They broke the panel of the door whereupon he discharged a

firearm through it, injuring two of the persons outside. The conviction was quashed by the English Court of Criminal Appeal on the

basis that the trial judge had been wrong simply to regard the defence as one of simply self defence. Hewitt C.J. held that the law

relating to the defence of the dwelling was different to that of the ordinary law of self defence and insofar as the judge’s charge to

the jury “proceeded on the foundation that the defence was the ordinary of self defence” they had been mischarged and the verdict

might have been different had the law been correctly stated.

57. This Court wishes to make it clear, in the absence of other express Irish authority to this effect, that to the extent that the

Common Law permitted the killing of a burglar by a householder simply for being a burglar, and no matter what the other

circumstances, it no longer does so in this jurisdiction. It has not done so for at least 70 years. Many social and historical reasons

could be cited to support this conclusion but in reality it is unnecessary to cite more than one: the Constitution of Ireland. This

provides at Article 40.3.1:

“The State guarantees by its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate the personal

rights of the citizen.”

58. By the next sub-Article it is provided that:

“The State shall, in particular, by its laws to protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done,

vindicate the life, person, good name and property rights of every citizen”.

59. It seems an elementary proposition, in the light of such provisions, that a person cannot lawfully lose his life simply because he

trespasses in the dwellinghouse of another with intent to steal. In as much as the State itself will not exact the forfeiture of his life

for doing so, it is ridiculous to suggest that a private citizen, however outraged, may deliberately kill him simply for being a burglar.

60. But this is by no means the end of the matter.

61. This Court cannot accept the contention made on behalf of Anthony Barnes that a burglary is a serious offence but not, in and of

itself, an act of aggression. In argument Mr. Jeremy Maher S.C. for the applicant heavily emphasised the fact that Barnes had spied

out the land in advance, had approached the premises carefully and generally taken precautions to ensure, as far as he could, that

the premises were unoccupied when he entered them.

62. It seems clear to us that a burglar would prefer, in his own interests, to enter empty premises rather than an occupied house. But

that cannot take from the fact that every burglar runs the risk that the householder may be present even though the burglar thinks

he is not, or that the occupant, though at first absent, may return to his own house as he is manifestly entitled to do.

63. An occupier in the presence of a burglar (whether the burglar knows that he is there or not), is in a position of very acute

difficulty. Firstly, his dwellinghouse has been violated and this is not merely a crime at law but an invasion of his personal rights. Such

a thing, especially if repeated, may in itself gravely undermine the wellbeing even of a strong and healthy occupant, and still more

that of an older or feeble one. The offence of burglary committed in a dwellinghouse is in every instance an act of aggression, an

attack on the personal rights of the citizen as well as a public crime and is a violation of him or her.

64. Furthermore, particular circumstances may gravely worsen the position of the householder. He or she may have the care of and

responsibility for children or old and sick people in the house or likely to come there. He may himself be aging or elderly, apprehensive

or even terrified out of his wits. He has no idea what the burglar will do or whether he is violently disposed or not. Common knowledge

will have told him that certain burglaries are committed by drug addicts whose behaviour may be randomly vicious or wholly

unpredictable. The circumstances may be such as render it difficult or impossible to summon assistance: he may have no telephone or

be afraid to attract the attention of the burglar, or provoke his rage, by using one.

65. It is sometimes said that the rights of householders as recognised at Common Law, even with the major qualification laid down

above, reflect an earlier era when life was “nasty brutish and short” and armed gangs roamed the countryside, with the forces of law

often at a great distance. This is historically true. But it is also necessary to say, in the words of an English academic authority:

“When the householder finds himself in the presences of a burglar in the still of the night, his position is exactly the same

as it was for his nineteenth eighteenth or even sixteenth century ancestors. The police force is of no service. If he has a

telephone, the noise made in operating it will probably alert the burglar, who may well be of a violent disposition. The

householder knows that he must make the choice between attempting to arrest or scare off the burglar in which case he

may find himself in serious danger, if the burglar turns out to be violent, and attacking the burglar first without a warning

and possibly by inflicting death thus ensuring the safety of himself and his family”. (See Lanham Defence of Property in

the Criminal Law [1966] Crim. L.R. 368.

66. Since this piece was written, Irish Statute Law has removed the necessity for a forcible entry with intent to rob to happen at

night in order for it to be considered burglary.

67. Having considered the older authorities, the Act of 1997 and the realities of the position of a victim of burglary as they appear to

us, we draw the following legal conclusions.

68. Every burglary in a dwellinghouse is an act of aggression. The circumstances may make this element of aggression more or less

patent but the violation of a citizen’s dwellinghouse is just that, a violation and an act of aggression no matter what the other

circumstances.

69. A person who commits such a violation exposes himself to various legal penalties, if he is detected and convicted. But that is not

the limit of his exposure. Although he is not liable to be killed by the householder simply for being a burglar, he is an aggressor and

may expect to be lawfully met with retaliatory force to drive him off or to immobilise or detain him and end the threat which he offers

to the personal rights of the householder and his or her family or guests. And this is so whether the dwellinghouse which he enters is,

or appears to be, occupied or unoccupied when he breaks into it.

70. The propositions just set out derive from the nature of the dwellinghouse itself, and its constitutional standing as a place required

by the dignity of the human person to be inviolable except in accordance with law. Though a dwellinghouse is property and often

indeed the most valuable piece of property an individual citizen possesses, it would be quite wrong to equate it with other forms of

property such as money or moneys worth or other pieces of personal property. Though these may have a sentimental as well as a

cash value, and may in certain circumstances be important or even essential for the individual who owns them, a dwellinghouse is a

higher level, legally and constitutionally, than other forms of property. The free and secure occupation of it is a value very deeply

embedded in human kind and this free and secure occupation of a dwellinghouse, apart from being a physical necessity, is a necessity

for the human dignity and development of the individual and the family. It is in this sense that people who have been the victim of

burglaries often speak of feeling personally debased by the experience. If Mr. Forrestal, in this case, had not disturbed the burglars

but come back later to find his house in the state described by Mr. Murphy, it is not all difficult to imagine his very predictable feelings

at seeing his bed upside down, his television thrown on the floor, the doors of the house and rooms and furniture within it thrown off

their hinges and every private nook and cranny violently searched.

71. The considerations set out in the last paragraph equally explain why burglary must always be an act of aggression. In reality, it is

amongst the worst acts of aggression the individual citizen is likely to encounter. Moreover, Mr. Forrestal was a country man whose

occupation and interests alike constrained him to live in the country in a somewhat isolated position and was worse off to that degree

than one who lived in an apartment or an estate of houses in urban citizens.

72. It should be understood that, in the circumstances of this case, it is unnecessary to discuss whether a building of another sort,

the curtilege of a building, a garden, a farm or an orchard partake of the same, or any, particular status.

73. As noted above, the special protection afforded to the dwellinghouse dates back to time immemorial. It has been expressed in

various ways, none perhaps so well known, even outside legal circles as that in Semaynes case (1604) 5 Co. Rep. 91a:

“That the house of everyone is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for

his repose”.

74. This is the origin of the “castle doctrine” prominent especially in U.S. law.

75. The special status of a dwellinghouse has always been linked to the dignity of its occupants, as in the following the quotation

from Meads and Belts case (1828) York Summer assizes:

“the making of an attack upon the dwelling, and especially at night, the law requires as equivalent to an assault on a

man’s person; for a man’s house is his castle, and therefore, in the eye of the law, it is equivalent to an assault”.

76. Those citations, together with the others, both leading and deriving from the constitutional status of the dwellinghouse, are what

lead us to conclude that the breaking into of a person’s house by a trespasser with intent to steal or commit any other form of crime

is indeed, in and of itself, an act of aggression.

77. There are consequences of the special status of the dwellinghouse and of its importance to the human dignity of its occupants.

Amongst the most relevant of these is that, as has been held by the Courts of Common Law for centuries, a person in his

dwellinghouse can never, in law, be under an obligation to leave it, to retreat from it or to abandon it to the burglar or other

aggressor. Thus, Sir Matthew Hale said (I Hale P.C. 486):

“It seems to me in such a case H. being in his own house, need not fly as far as he can, as in other cases of se

defendendo for he hath the protection of his house to excuse him from flying, for that would be to give up the possession

of his house to his adversary by his flight”.

78. It is of course common experience that there will be occasions when a person might well be advised to flee, but that is a matter

for his own discretion and he can never be under a legal obligation to do so. Equally, there will be other occasions when a person

might be ill advised to flee, perhaps because of exterior conditions or perhaps because of the fear of meeting an accomplice of the

known aggressor, or being pursued by the latter, and attacked when he is outside his dwellinghouse and to that extent in a worse or

more dubious position.

79. It is, in our view, quite inconsistent with the constitutional doctrine of the inviolability of a dwellinghouse that a householder or

other lawful occupant could be ever be under a legal obligation to flee the dwellinghouse or, as it might be put in more contemporary

language, to retreat from it. It follows from this, in turn, that such a person can never be in a worse position in point of law because

he has decided to stand his ground in his house.

Degree of force.

80. We have already held that burglary is an act of aggression by its nature, and that a burglar may be met with retaliatory force to

drive him off or to immobilise or detain him and to end the threat which he offers to the personal rights of the householder and his or

her family or guests. That is easy to say in general terms, but in individual cases the question will immediately arise, what degree of

force may the householder deploy to those ends?

81. It is, of course, impossible to lay down any formula with which the degree of force can be instantly calculated. Nor, in our view,

would it be just to lay down a wholly objective standard, to be judged by the standards of the hypothetical reasonable person.

82. The victim of a burglary is not in the position of an ordinary reasonable man or woman contemplating what course of action is

best in particular circumstances. He may be (and Mr. Forrestal actually was) aging, alone, confronted with numerous and/or much

younger assailants (Barnes was almost exactly fifty years younger than his victim). In almost every case the victim of burglary will be

taken by surprise. The victim will, therefore, be in almost every case shocked and surprised and may easily be terrified out of his wits.

To hold a person in this situation to an objective standard would be profoundly unjust.

83. Equally, however, it cannot be left to every person himself to lay down for himself how much force he or she is entitled to use.

There must be both a subjective and an objective component in the assessment of the degree of force proper to be used by the

victim of a burglar. There is, in our opinion, a very useful analogy here to be drawn with a statutory criteria for the use of non-lethal

force.

84. Section 18 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act, 1997, provides as follows

85. In argument in the present case, Mr. Maher S.C. contended that, on the basis of that statutory provision, Mr. Forrestal would

have been committing an offence in applying any force at all to Mr. Barnes. We do not believe that this argument is well founded,

most obviously because it depends (as Mr. Maher did not at all conceal) on the proposition that Barnes, though a burglar, was not an

aggressor. For the reasons given above we would reject this contention: every burglar is an aggressor. But even apart from that it

would be observed that the statutory formula itself partakes of both a subjective element - force “such as is reasonable in the

circumstances as her or she perceives them to be…” and an objective element - the provisions of s.1(2) of the 1997 Act which

require a court or jury to have regard to the presence or absence of reasonable grounds for the belief that the level of force used

was no more than was reasonably necessary in the circumstances. But it must always be borne in mind that the burglar must take the

occupant as he finds him and that in many cases it will in practice take the deployment of grossly disproportionate force, or evidence

of actual malice (as in the well known Martin case in Great Britain) to fix the householder with liability. He or she has, after all, been

deliberately subjected to an experience which will shock even the most robust and might make many irrational with terror.

The position of the burglar.

86. Considering the heinous and inherently aggressive nature of the crime of burglary in a dwellinghouse, there is an air of

improbability about the burglar, the initial aggressor, relying on the defence of self defence when he has violently killed the

householder. A consideration of the facts of this case increases that aura of improbability. Mr. Forrestal can have lived only a very

short time after he disturbed the burglars in his house. That his discovery of the burglars was a complete surprise to him is, on the

facts of the case, indisputable. On Barnes’s own account, the only direct eye witness account which must naturally be narrowly

scrutinised, his killing of Mr. Forrestal must have taken place in the few minutes after the latter’s re-entering the house. A

consideration of the authorities suggest that there is scope, but narrow scope, for the defence of self defence by the burglar in those

circumstances.

87. At Common Law the killing of a householder by the burglar would have been murder as an unlawful homicide perpetrated in the

course of committing a felony. In the case of an ordinary assault in a public place or at any event outside either party’s dwelling,

scope for self defence by an aggressor against a person who, initially at any event, was the victim is very constricted. This is

because of the principle of “self generated necessity”, which, as we shall see, is reflected, in the case of non-fatal injuries, in s.18(7)

of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act, 1997:

“The defence provided by this Section does not apply to a person who causes conduct or a state of affairs with a view to

using force to resist or terminate it”.

88. Common Law formulations of the same concept - the Principle of self generated Necessity - include;

“Neither shall a man in any case justify the killing of another by a pretence of necessity, unless himself were wholly

without fault in bringing that necessity upon himself”.

(1 Hawkins c.28)

“Justifiable homicide is of diverse kinds,

1. Such as is owing to some unavoidable necessity, without any will, intention or desire or without any inadvertence or

negligence in the party killing, and therefore without any shadow of blame”.

(Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1830) Volume IV p.178).

89. From these classic indicators and precedents, and from the powerful analogy to be drawn from the 1997 statute, we are of the

opinion, that, since a burglary is an act of aggression analogous to an assault or trespass to the person, a burglar, during the course

of the burglary can never be regarded as wholly blameless in the killing of a householder or other lawful occupant. His act of burglary

is the first (and very grave) wrong. At Common Law the householder would have been entitled to kill him. Since however the Common

Law must be regarded as overruled in that particular regard by the respect for life expressed in Article 40 of the Constitution, it

follows that there must be some scope for self defence by a burglar. That scope, however, is very limited, to defence against an

attempt by the householder to kill the burglar simply for being a burglar. But the killing of a householder by a burglar, during the

course of the burglary, can never be less than manslaughter, by reason of the burglar’s initial, grave, aggression.

Evidential questions.

90. As we have seen above, one of the submissions made by Mr. Maher on the hearing of this appeal was that this Court, unlike the

jury at the trial, was bound to accept the veracity of the defendant’s account in considering the facts to which the legal principles of

self defence by a burglar should be applied.

91. Mr. Maher supported this argument with a proposition of limpid clarity: Barnes account was the only account available.

92. There are a number of factual observations which first occur on this topic. Firstly Barnes is a man of proven dishonesty who,

apart from being a burglar, told a number of undoubted lies in the course of his statements to the gardaí. He did not give evidence in

court and therefore was not subjected to cross-examination. He had every reason to portray Mr. Forrestal as the attacker: if he did

not do so, his conviction for murder was inevitable. Finally and most tellingly of all it is clear, having regard to the way in which the

jury were charged, that Barnes account of Mr. Forrestal launching a lethal attack on him with no provocation other than the burglary

was rejected by the jury, as they were fully entitled to do. Not merely were they entitled to do it in their sole discretion but one can

see numerous reasons, to do with the account itself and the overall circumstances of the killing, why they might have done so.

Moreover, having regard to the manner in which the jury were charged, they must have come to the conclusion, not merely that they

were unconvinced by Barnes’s account of killing the householder in self defence, but were positively satisfied, beyond reasonable

doubt, that his account was false.

93. The reason why Barnes account in the form of statements to the gardaí is the only account available is an obvious one: he killed

the only person who could contradict him. He killed him in circumstances of great violence, giving rise to the injuries described above.

If Mr. Maher is correct, and this Court is bound to accept the account Barnes gave to the gardaí, then he has obtained a positive

benefit from killing Mr. Forrestal: his account is beyond contradiction.

94. Furthermore, Mr. Maher’s argument has the rather odd consequence, if correct, that this Court must approach the factual issues

on a basis completely different to that open to the jury, when the exercise on which this Court is engaged is that of deciding whether

the jury’s verdict was safe and satisfactory.

95. It does not appear to us that the Court is constrained in the manner contended for by Mr. Maher. On the contrary, since it is

clear that the jury had disbelieved the exculpatory aspects of Barnes’s statement, and there were ample rational grounds for them to

do so, it seems to me that this Court is bound by that finding.

96. It may be that, if another case of this sort presents itself, it would be possible to argue that the rights of the householder to his

life and to the inviolability of his dwelling are inadequately protected by a rule which fails to differentiate, in addressing the onus of

proof, between a fight in a public place and the position of a burglar who kills a householder in the house which he is burgling. It may

be that, in so doing, the burglar has placed himself in the position where he has exclusive knowledge of the cause of the

householder’s death. If this is so then the burden of proof might be regarded as devolving upon the burglar to establish self defence.

The case would appear to be a stronger one than Minister for Industry and Commerce v. Steele [1952] IR 304, because the point

could not arise unless it had been proved or admitted that the defendant was actually in the process of a burglary. But the point does

not arise in the circumstances of the present case.

The charge to the jury.

97. As noted above, the learned trial judge’s charge in this case proceeded wholly on the basis of the judgment of this Court in

Dwyer’s case. On the basis of that authority it is clear that once a defendant intending to plead self defence has met the evidential

burden, the onus is on the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the killing was not in self defence. This proposition

could fairly be described as very well known. Nevertheless the learned trial judge on two occasions in the course of his charge

informed the jury that the position was otherwise and that, self defence being a defence, the onus of establishing it rested on the

defendant, and that the standard of proof according to which he had to discharge this onus was the balance of probabilities. This

misdirection is repeated twice and occurs both before and after the reading of two statements of the law contained in a very lengthy

extract from two of the judgments in Dwyer. From these the true position is perfectly clear.

98. As one would expect, this error was made the subject of requisitions by both sides. The learned trial judge did not go into the

matter in any great detail in argument but as he put it “took their word for it”. He then recharged the jury, and did not shrink from

describing what he had previously said as “a very very serious error”. He then told them, tersely it is true but I would have thought

unmistakably, what the true position was.

99. To hold that this correction, prefaced as it was by an unusually abject confession of error, rendered the verdict unsafe or

unsatisfactory, would require one to conclude that the jury had simply ignored the correction. We see no reason to believe that they

would have done that and it is only fair to add that the terms of the learned trial judge’s correction seem to us to make it impossible

to think that the jury would have ignored it, or that it could have escaped their attention. Indeed, the piece of evidence which the

jury wished to have read back to them, that relating to the bruise on the unfortunate Mr. Forrestal’s right upper arm on its inner

aspect, is consistent with a proper and diligent attention to a salient feature of their task, on the basis upon which they were

charged.

100. It is of course true that, bearing in mind this Court’s findings in relation to the position of householder and burglar, that the

learned trial judge’s charge (in the absence of any invitation to do so) did not address the subtleties of this position at all. It did not

seriously address the fact that the deceased was a householder whose premises the defendant was burgling, and the legal

consequences of that state of affairs. But having regard to those consequences as we have found them to be, it seems quite clear

that the defendant was considerably advantaged by the learned trial judge’s omission to go beyond the general terms of the decisions

in Dwyer, and to address specifically the consequences of the defendant being a burglar.

Other points arising.

101. Mr. Maher relied on a number of other points in a critique of the conduct of the trial. We are satisfied that none of them were

such as would render it unsafe or unsatisfactory. But certain of the points raised call for comment.

The wearing of wigs.

102. There is, unfortunately, no doubt that in the course of the trial (but in the absence of the jury) the learned trial judge twice

made somewhat arch and oblique comments about the fact that neither senior nor junior counsel for the defence was wearing a wig.

They contended and, very creditably, counsel for the prosecution agreed, that the learned trial judge’s remarks were open only to the

construction that he was displeased that Mr. Maher and his junior Mr. Michael Delaney were not wearing wigs.

103. Section 49 of the Courts and Courts Officers Act, 1995, provides as follows:

“A barrister or a solicitor when appearing in any court shall not be required to wear a wig of the kind heretofore worn or

any other wig of a ceremonial type”.

104. It will be seen from this that, no doubt wisely and perhaps necessarily, the Oireachtas refrained from any attempt to specify the

garb to be worn by professionals in court. But it did lay down that an advocate shall not be required to wear a wig and this law must

be presumed to be consistent with the Constitution and valid. It must be said immediately that the learned trial judge did not attempt

to require either counsel to wear a wig. But he commented in such a way as to make it quite clear to the barristers in question that

he was displeased at their not wearing wigs and would be pleased if they did. To further this point he went out of his way to praise

an apparently recently called barrister, who entered court wearing a wig, for his respect of the traditions of his profession.

105. We were invited to consider this point as a component of a more general allegation of cumulative prejudice.

106. In our view it is inconsistent with respect for the proposition that counsel may not be required to wear wigs to make arch (or

any) remark about whether they are so equipped or not. A judge is in a powerful position; some of his powers are discretionary;

advocates less doughty and experienced than Mr. Maher and Mr. Delaney might feel constrained in the interests of their client to

conform with the judge’s obvious preferences in this regard. Needless to say there is no question in the conduct of this case of the

slightest bias, or even appearance of bias in the conduct of the trial, but that is not the point.

107. Mr. Maher submitted that, though the remarks were made in the absence of the jury, they can only have had a discouraging

effect on his client who, before the case had begun properly saw his counsel in some form of conflict with the judge. We do not think

that this is a real apprehension. The remarks, though plain as a pikestaff to any lawyer, were obliquely couched and cannot have

meant anything to the defendant. Moreover, the record of the trial makes it perfectly clear that Mr. Barnes, a person in a position of

very great difficulty which he brought on himself by his decision to burgle a dwellinghouse, was defended not merely competently but

doughtily, ingeniously, and eloquently. Both on reading the transcript and on hearing the arguments addressed at this appeal, the

Court was moved to admiration of the defence afforded to Mr. Barnes. Some criminal cases start and develop in a way which favours

the defence: this one developed in the opposite way but the defence team never flinched. Mr. Maher’s response to the first remark

about wig wearing by the learned trial judge was, we venture to say, an entirely appropriate one.

The Appeal Court.

108. Another painful topic which arises clearly from a reading of the transcript is that the learned trial judge took the opportunity on

several occasions, mostly in the absence of the jury, to make unfortunate remarks about the Court of Criminal Appeal. These remarks

tended to personalise to the individual trial judge the actions of the appeal tribunal and were altogether unfortunate and undignified.

Other issues.

109. Other matters arose which we regard as incapable of having rendered the trial unsafe or unsatisfactory. Objection was taken to

the admission of one of two photographs of the body of Mr. Forrestal in the place where it was found - the other was excluded at the

request of the defence. This was a case where it was clearly necessary, in dealing with an event which happened in a small house, to

show the precise position of the body, especially when that was not the location in which the fatal injuries were said to have been

inflicted. Having regard to the fact that Mr. Barnes admitted burglary and admitted having stabbed the householder, the sudden

access of delicacy which led to objection being taken to this photograph is not readily comprehensible. To regard it as having

affected the jury adversely to Mr. Barnes would be to credit them with no sense of justice, and no common sense at all. We

absolutely decline to do this.

110. Similarly, objection was taken to the admission of evidence about no palms prints being found on the door which Barnes said he

supported by pressing his palms to it, on the basis that it was not in the Book of Evidence. In our view this was a topic plainly very

likely to come up having regard to the nature of the defence and of the statements made. There was a full opportunity to cross-

examine and indeed the defence secured an admission that fingerprints and marks of that sort were delicate and easily eradicated. I

am not clear why such great objection was taken to the prosecution’s proving the fact that Barnes had indeed “signed on” at the

dole office though he had denied doing so to the guards. We are also satisfied that, while not ideal, the method of proving his

signature by comparison with another document bearing it was quite legitimate. It will be noted that he did not deny signing either

document. It is not clear, furthermore, on what basis the learned trial judge excluded the evidence of the robbery of the collection

box after leaving Mr. Forrestal’s house. This is surely evidence of “subsequent conduct”. While it is also evidence of a commission of

another crime, that factor is surely outweighed by its relevance in countering the portrayal of Barnes as a man fleeing after a lethal

attack. But this observation, of course, is obiter.

Conclusion.

111. For the reasons set out above the Court will dismiss the application for leave to appeal.