Hot in the courtroom as defendant strips to show tattoo

BY PAUL MURPHY

The temperature reached 27 degrees in Trim today but it wasn't the heat that led to a man stripping off his t-shirt in the local courtroom.
The man - 40-year-old Aaron Doyle of Cardiffsbridge Road, Finglas West in Dublin who was facing charges of failure to have car insurance and of giving false details to a Garda when he was stopped at Masspool, The Ward, Ashbourne on 13th March last year - was asked by his barrister James O'Brien to take off his shirt to show a distinctive tattoo on his back. Garda Damien Whelan said that following the arrest of the accused he had carried out checks on him because he was not satisfied about his identity. He had gone into the Garda Pulse system and viewed a photograph from 2012 and he was satisfied that the photograph depicted the man who he had stopped and arrested at 1.45am. The Garda said he was also present in the Garda station to view what he termed "the most distinctive tattoo I have ever seen in 11 years" and that tattoo was of the accused's mother. However, when the accused took off his t-shirt in court the barrister said it was clearly of a male figure. Judge Cormac Dunne said he was dismissing the charges "on a technicality."