A judge has ruled that the south Galway farmer accused of assaulting Junior Government 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 on Wednesday to not accede to the defence application, Mr Hassett told Judge Gabbett that the defence will now be going into evidence, but the judge said he will hear the remainder of the case later in the day at Ennis District Court.
Judge Gabbett said that the best evidence in the case was the CCTV which showed that the sealed bag of cow dung did not hit Anne Rabbitte but shows Ms Rabbitte moving to avoid the bag.
The judge said that 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. Minister Rabbitte was present in court for today’s ruling.
In the case, Mr Baldwin (39) of Ballyaneen, Gort, denies assaulting Anne Rabbitte on January 4, 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, Minister Rabbitte 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’ and then he flung a bag as well.” After the bag fell on the ground beside her, Minister Rabbitte said: “I didn’t know if the two legs were going to go from under me.”
The Fianna Fáil minister said: “Someone picked it up and said that it was a bag of shit. I wanted to scream my head off because no one said that what was happening was wrong.” Minister Rabbitte said that 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’, Minister 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 gardai 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 Deputy Ciaran Cannon (FG) and he threw the second bag in the direction of Minister Rabbitte and “it brushed off someone else and fell on the floor near her”.
Mr Baldwin said that earlier that day “I 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.”
“I went to that 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.
“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.
