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THE JURY IN the trial of three Anglo Irish Bank executives were tasked one week ago today with deciding whether to bring the first convictions against Irish bankers under specific laws.
The seven women and five men heard complex and technical evidence from 54 witnesses over the course of two months but from last Friday all eyes were on them.
Once their deliberations had started, it was a guessing game for the legal teams, the media and members of the public who attended the trial as to when they would come to a decision.
The accused were told not to stray too far as they could return with a verdict (or partial verdicts) at any time.
A tense atmosphere of unknowing grew as the hours dwindled away.
By law, the group had to have discussions of at least two hours and twenty minutes.
They were tasked with coming up with verdicts in relation to charges against Anglo Irish Bank’s former CEO and chairman Seán FitzPatrick, the former MD of lending in Ireland for Anglo, Patrick Whelan and the former chief risk officer and finance director, William McAteer who were charged with breaching Section 60 of the Companies Act 1963.
Surely, it would take longer then than 140 minutes? Some thought not. There was expectation on Monday.
“Would it be quick?”
“Will they take their time?
“And will it be unanimous?”
These were all questions being thrown around.
“When do you think they’ll be back?” mused one reporter to another.
It’s hard to tell, a lot of boxes of evidence went into the room after them.
On Monday, the first full day of deliberations, journalists from all major Irish media outlets squeezed into their allotted seats, elbow to elbow, as the jury filed in.
FitzPatrick, Whelan and McAteer were sitting together to the left of the court room, all with expressionless faces.
Instead of a verdict, the jury had a question. Members wanted a copy of loan documentation relating to Seán Quinn’s wife, Patricia. That was that. They all filed out with the judge telling them to return again in a few hours.
Up on their feet again, the accused got up and left the court room, though they were told ‘not to go too far’ in case the jury returned.
The expectation of a result today lessened. The jury was mulling over certain aspects of people’s testimony. They were being dogged.
Matter of time
Some members of the legal teams and media filed out of the court room taking seats just outside, hovering over their mobiles and laptops. Now, it was just a matter of waiting.
The Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin is a grandiose circular building, with glass elevators and court rooms on each of its sixth floor. It is filled with barristers in wigs and gowns, gardaí and a spectrum of Irish society. There is not much to do, other than let time roll by.
Waiting around for a verdict is tedious, but people watching and observing the everyday goings on – such as the mundanity of window washing, where three men scaled down the side of the building, swinging from side to side with wipers and suds, caught most people’s eye.
TV3′s Brian O’ Donovan went outside to capture the scene as taking images is prohibited inside the Criminal Courts of Justice.
Whelan and McAteer often waited outside the court room with the media and their legal teams. FitzPatrick generally left the general vicinity of the court room area, but never took the elevator. He always walked the six flights of stairs.
Guessing game
When asked when they thought a verdict might be returned, one of the legal team said he never takes chances with an unknown group.
If you have been doing trials with a jury long enough you know that you can never guess when a jury will make up their mind. It’s really anyone’s guess.
One person speculated that the jury might not want to be seen to be too quick, so they might draw it out. While another speculated that if they were asking for documents perhaps it would go into next week.
“It could come down to human psychology. They have been here for two months now, they have jobs and lives to get back to, do they really want to return after the Easter break? I don’t think so.”
The jury returned again. Would this be it? No. This time they wanted court transcripts.
That was it for day one of full deliberations. The jury were sent home.
Business as usual
On Tuesday, it was all a bit stagnant. The same court room but a dampened atmosphere. This may not be a historic day.
While the deliberations continued in the jury room, Judge Martin Nolan continued to hear cases before him.
Plaintiffs accused of robbery and shoplifting appear in court – the juxtaposition of small amounts of stolen cash to that of hundreds of thousands of euros mentioned in the Anglo trial shows the wide spectrum of the justice system.
One man appeared before Judge Nolan accused of stealing from people’s pockets in a Dublin pub, while another was in court for breaching his probation.
Instead of scores of barristers filling up desks like that of the defense and prosecution in the Anglo trial, there are but two barristers arguing the case as to why the accused should be released on bail or stay in jail until their court date.
Members of the gardaí gave evidence to the judge, with one stating that an accused male concealed his identity to the gardaí upon his arrest. His counsel argued for him to be released on bail.
Judge Nolan questioned his trustworthiness, stating that he misled the gardaí.
Some were released on €100 bonds and had to await their trial while others were remanded in custody.
The men dressed in tracksuits sat in the same dock as FitzPatrick, Whelan and McAteer – all in the same position of awaiting to hear their fate.
Court 19
At the outset of the Anglo trial there was speculation that there would be a lot of public interest in the trial throughout, so much so, that an overflow room was made available for the extra crowds who wished to attend the proceedings.
However, at the end of the trial, Court 19 had plenty of room. Had the public lost interest? Maybe. The overflow room was rarely needed, I was told.
Tuesday proved fruitless also as the jury failed to return with a verdict. Each time they filed out of the jury room, they looked that bit more tired.
At the end of each day, media photographers waited outside the courts for a glimpse of the men.
Standing on the steps, film crews and photographers waited for the three to head home. There were amusing moments when other people leaving the building were visibly taken aback by the presence of photographers.
People’s reactions differed. They would either strike a little pose for the laugh or scuttle away shielding their faces.
FitzPatrick, Whelan and McAteer left each day, with nothing to say.
After hours of deliberating and a direction from the judge that they did not need a unanimous verdict, the jury returned late on the third day. They had found that FitzPatrick was not guilty on all charges.
By Friday, Patrick Whelan and William McAteer were each found guilty of giving illegal loans to Maple 10, but found not guilty of giving illegal loans to any member of the Quinn family.
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Eaten bread is soon forgotten. If their was a measles epidemic in the wealthier countries the anti-vaxx brigade would soon be lining their kids up.
@Danielle Cafolla: Yep too removed from the devastating effects of preventable diseases.
Wealthier countries have more internet access where any old Yahoo can make up some facts and write it….coincidence I don’t think so
@John Horan: 100% agree. I’d even go one step further with your analogy. I work in this area, and in my experience the vast majority of anti-vaxx parents are middle-class, and moderately educated. They consider themselves to be well-read on the topic, but unfortunately via unreliable sources, probably no better than Yahoo. The Dunning Kruger effect in action.
I have seen so many comments online, and twice face to face, where someone says something along the line of
“Sure we don’t need to vaccinate for . Nobody gets that anymore.”
It actually causes me physical pain where I hear such stupidity!
@The Bob:
And my personal favourite:
“We all had measles as kids, sure it never did us any harm…”
(*apart from the 50,000+ deaths it causes annually)
@The Great Unwashed: Yes, yes. Another golden one that is.
People in developed countries have more access to social media platforms and are subsequently influenced by Facebook pages endorsed by the anti-vaxxer movement. As such, they fail to vaccinate their children in the mistaken belief that it causes a raft of conditions such as autism, ADHD etc. it’s amazing how a few “likes”and “shares” lure the gullible in to unsafe practices regarding their children.
Always took the French as being intelligent. Sorry that my presumption is wrong.
Don’t forget to ask the questions, it’s amazing the lengths the Pharma will go to , to make a buck . My question would be are we 100% sure about these vaccines or is it a matter of they do the job , why now is there so many cases of autism in our children like never before. Many questions to be asked and answered but then there is no money to be made .
@rosemarie slamon: Your comment would be hilarious if there wasn’t kids dying over this level of stupidity. Can you join the idiots queue at the back please?
@rosemarie slamon:
Please point to ONE SINGLE study that has found a greater prevalence of autism in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated cohorts of kids.
I’ll wait (but I won’t hold my breath if that’s ok).
@rosemarie slamon: ah Jebus. So you mention “many” questions to be asked then pose precisely 2, that are easily answered. Yes we’re quite sure about the vaccines. And they have NOTHING to do with bloody autism. The increase in diagnosis you mention is because of (to list a few) the widening of diagnostic criteria, a greater understanding of autism among all stakeholders (general public, parents, educators, health and medical professionals), not reactively sticking those with autism in institutions and a society and economy that allows more people with autism (though not enough) to lead fulfilling successful lives which leads to greater visibility as a whole and a greater likelihood that they will have children & ASD is genetic so more people with ASD. Any other questions darling?
@rosemarie slamon: Maybe you could reach out to a grieving mother in the third world who has watched their child die of a sickness that is preventable, a mother who never had access to vaccination. Perhaps you could explain to her your illogical anti scientific privileged opinions based on Internet nonsense . I am sure she would be gobsmacked by the illogical nonsense you have accrued from your position of safety and luxury. Of course its easy to be illogical when you cushioned from the real world, the world where children die in the tens of thousands from lack of basics such as medical care or access to clean water and diseases that we thought we consigned to the past .
@rosemarie slamon: “why now is there so many cases of autism in our children like never before.”
Because milder and more numerous cases are getting diagnosed, the diagnostic has net has widened (diagnosing milder cases), more cases are spotted and fewer cases are slipping though. The real number has not changed.
To confirm that autism has not increased, psychologists went into the community in the UK to look for adults with undiagnosed autism, who were missed as children. They found autism is as common in adults as it is in children today, proving conclusively that autism did not increase over time.
“The prevalence of ASD in this population is similar to that found in children. The lack of an association with age is consistent with there having been no increase in prevalence and with its causes being temporally constant.”
So no, …. vaccines don’t cause autism and anyway autism isn’t really increasing in frequency.
References:
Brugha, T. et al. 2011. Epidemiology of autism spectrum disorders in adults in the community in England. Archives of general psychiatry, 68(5), pp.459-465.
@The Great Unwashed: I think Dr Whitfield did a great study once. In his shed I believe…
@rosemarie slamon: nothing you just said is true. I’d argue about it but don’t have the energy. I’d cite my credentials as someone with a background in genetics, medicine and statistics as grounds for what I’m saying but you’d probably just accuse me of being “brainwashed” or working for big pharma (or hilariously the time I was told my years and years of training make me “no more qualified” to weigh in than the anti vaxxer with a smartphone) anyway boils down to….
Vaccinations = good,
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis as a result of measles = bad.
Autism = genetic developmental disorder unrelated to vaccinations but NOT in utero exposure to vaccine preventable diseases
Autism prevelence on the rise = baseless claim but even if trend was an increase numerous etiological and diagnostic factors would be at play the only one definitively not linked = vaccinations
@rosemarie slamon: Older men more likely to have kids further along the autistic spectrum. In general people are having kids at older ages, this trend has been in place (in developed world at least) since the 1960s.
@Sarah:
You need to be careful mentioning Dr Whitfield, I got banned from this website for making my opinion of that particular “Dr” abundantly clear.
@java_cakes: I’ve often wondered about that. For some reason, so often only women’s details are studied. They don’t seem to record the ages of the fathers. I don’t know if there is any actual study on this.
Why do we need to have faith in this?? It’s got a well proven track record. Leave the faith for the superstitious.
More worrying, 9% of Irish people surveyed, would’ve been better off being taken by one of the diseases they were most likely vaccinated against as children. Darwin is a great equalizer. I’ve said it before, what the world needs right now is a nice apocalyptic pandemic to even the playing field again.
The best one I heard was a parent sending out birthday invitations for their child that read at the bottom “only vaccinated children please” for the other parents to later find out that the parent sending the invitations hand not got their child vaccinated because they didn’t believe in it!!
They just have more options. In a poor country you take anything that keeps you healthy and pray not to get sick. Any risk associated with the vaccine is outweighed by your lack of ability to deal with illness.
@Dan: and those “risks” are immeasurably outweighed by the whole not getting potentially lethal diseases thing
Because how a person feels about something in wealthier countrys counts as rational thought.
Dunning-Kruger Effect in action
G Manning, lots of talk, but no evidence and could you please refrain from calling me darling
@rosemarie slamon: No evidence of what? It’s not darling he should be calling you by the way. You love, are away with the birds.
@rosemarie slamon: ok hon. Your delusion is impressive if nothing else given you’re trying to point to my lack of evidence when everything you said is nonsense. Vaccinations have no link to causing autism and it’s beholden to anyone making such a claim to prove it, which you can’t. I also explained your “increase” in autism for you though David Jordan put more effort in along with citations. Is there anything else we can resolve for you? Bigfoot, mermaids, why fedoras are never a good idea???
@rosemarie slamon: “lots of talk, but no evidence”
One could accuse you of the same.
G Manning, lots of talk but no evidence and could you please refrain from calling me darling
@rosemarie slamon: saying something stupid twice doesn’t make it any more true pet.
But they do use Mercury, aluminium and Formaldehyde in vaccines and that is what scares people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal_and_vaccines
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/common-ingredients-us-licensed-vaccines
Just to say that since 1960s, vaccines came in and autism rates have increased. This is a correlation, not a causation.
In reality higher autism rates are caused by older fathers. In general men have been having kids at older ages since the 1960s.
Instead of labelling anti-vaxx people, please explain the above to them so they can see this is not some kind of giant conspiracy.
@java_cakes: not the only cause for the increase in diagnoses but a factor. Do you really think these anti-science types will accept that explanation when they deny all others?
Without struggle people become self destructive?
Saying something stupid twice doesn’t make it any more true pet
@G Manning: see
@G Manning: for a second there I thought you were actually intelligent
@rosemarie slamon: well I’ve made a logical argument backed by facts. You’ve done the opposite. Willing to accept vaccines have nothing to do with autism? or are ya headin further down that online, unqualified, ignorant, “my mates friends aunties vaccinated donkey once bad touched a fireman who knew a person with autism…there must be a link!” Brigade?
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