Courts

‘I didn’t feel safe’: Minister weeps as she tells court of cow dung thrown at public meeting

Junior minister Anne Rabbitte says she was ‘picked out’ by farmer Joseph Baldwin from Ballyaneen, Gort

Minister of State at the Department of Health and at the Department of Children Anne Rabbitte: After the bag of dung landed beside her, she said: 'I didn’t know if the two legs were going to go from under me.' Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos
Gordon Deegan
Fri Sept 13 2024 - 15:48

A junior Government minister has told a court she didn’t feel safe in a public space “with the people that elected me” when a bag of cow dung was thrown at her.

Galway East TD and Minister of State at the Department of Health Anne Rabbitte wept in the witness box at Gort District Court sitting in Ennis.

She told the court she was “picked out” by Joseph Baldwin at a packed public meeting over a planned biogas plant for Gort at O’Sullivan’s Royal Hotel, Gort on January 4th, 2023.

“There was no safety. I didn’t feel safe in a public space with the people that elected me,” she said. “I felt I was the most vulnerable person in the room.

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“I didn’t feel protected or feel safe there.”

[ Fine Gael TD Ciarán Cannon to quit: ‘There’s a toxicity in politics that was barely palpable 20 years ago’ ]

Asked why she went to the gardaí later that night she said: “There is a line and I felt it was crossed that night and no one spoke up for me and I had to speak up for myself that night.”

Mr Baldwin (39), a farmer from Ballyaneen, Gort, denies assaulting Ms Rabbitte at the public meeting, contrary to section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.

Recounting the incident, Ms Rabbitte said she saw a man had flung a bag of contents towards her Galway East constituency colleague Ciarán Cannon of Fine Gael.

CCTV footage played to the court on Friday afternoon showed Mr Baldwin say “here is a bag of cow shite for you” before throwing the bag in the direction of Mr Cannon. The bag fell at the feet of Mr Cannon.

The footage showed Mr Baldwin turn and then throw a bag in the direction of Ms Rabbitte. The court heard from an eyewitness that the bag contained “a green liquid substance”.

[ Excrement thrown at Minister of State Anne Rabbitte and TD Ciarán Cannon ]

Ms Rabbitte said the man “was incredibly angry, his face was red. The white of his eyes I won’t forget.”

She said the defendant 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, Ms Rabbitte said: “I didn’t know if the two legs were going to go from under me.”

“Someone picked it up and said that it was a bag of shit.”

Solicitor for Mr Baldwin Daragh Hassett said eight eyewitnesses who were present on the night who gave statements to gardaí said the bag thrown by Mr Baldwin did not hit Ms Rabbitte.

He said Ms Rabbitte had recoiled from her statement to gardaí where she said the bag hit her on the torso and now she said she felt it hit her.

[ Anne Rabbitte considered political future after excrement thrown at her ]

Mr Hassett told Ms Rabbitte after hearing her evidence “you are a very unreliable historian”.

He added Ms Rabbitte’s statement to gardaí that she was struck by the bag was “inaccurate and misleading” when seen alongside the CCTV evidence which showed the bag did not hit her. “It is not assault,” he said.

He made an application for the case to be dismissed.

Counsel for the State Geri Silke conceded Ms Rabbitte was incorrect to say to gardaí that the bag struck her but argued the assault charge stood on the apprehension ground.

Mr Hassett said CCTV evidence which shows the bags did not hit Mr Cannon or Ms Rabbitte only became available in January of this year – months after the Director of Public Prosecutions directed his client be prosecuted for assault.

The court also heard that, in a statement to gardaí, Mr Baldwin said he went to the meeting “with no intention to harm anyone”. He said he had put dry cow dung into ziplock bags. “There was no smell or odour off the bags and I made sure that they were secure.” He recalled throwing the first bag of cow dung in the direction of Mr Cannon. He said it fell two to three feet from Mr Cannon and he threw the second bag in the direction of Ms Rabbitte and “it brushed off someone else and fell on the floor near her”.

“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.”

Judge Alec Gabbett adjourned the case to Ennis District Court to October 2nd where he said he would give a ruling on the defence application to dismiss the case.

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