F, M and M v Commissioner of An Garda Siochana and others.
In civil proceedings, three persons alleged that they had been wrongly arrested by Gardai and assaulted. The Gardai denied any wrong-doing. They had made two copies of CCTV footage but had failed to preserve the Master copy – the original copy from the recording system.When I examined the CCTV I noted gaps in the video footage for the relevant time period. By a close analysis of the remaining video material I discovered an important image showing physical contact between a Guard and one of the Plaintiffs. This image had not been disclosed by the Gardaí.
My report further demonstrated that the failure to preserve the Master copy may have resulted in the loss of video material that could have been of assistance to the Plaintiffs. After the third day of the hearing, the cases were settled with payments being made to the Plaintiffs.
DPP v J D
I edited CTV from three different cameras together in chronological order to show that a) the accused was clearly in view in one location at the time of the offence (a serious physical assault); b) shortly after the assault, a person who was similar to the accused in appearance and who could have been involved in the assault, was standing close to the accused; c) security personnel physically detained the accused rather than the similar looking person, who could have committed the offence.
The edit allowed the movements of various persons in and out of shot on various cameras to be viewed as one comprehensible narrative and included slow motion at crucial moments.
The video edit from three different cameras effectively proved that the accused was innocent: security personnel had grabbed the wrong man. The case was dropped on the first day of the trial.
CD v DPP/DPP v CD
This case related to an alleged sexual assault on a female Garda outside Dáil Éireann. The Gardaí claimed that they had inadvertently deleted some video material but preserved all the relevant material, by preserving still images from the video footage. By analysing the video footage from the Dáil CCTV system, I was able to demonstrate that as a matter of high degree of probability, the Gardaí had not preserved all the relevant video material, in particular from the moment when the sexual assault was alleged to have occurred.
When the case went to trial in the Circuit Court, the trial judge directed a verdict of not guilty, partly on the grounds that the accused could not get a fair trial in the absence of the missing still image/video material.