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The Director of Public Prosecutions will not be continuing with the charge against a teenager accused of producing a knife during a dispute at a party where student Cameron Blair was murdered.
The now 16-year-old accused, who cannot be named because he is a minor, went on trial on May 28th charged with the production of a knife at a house on Bandon Road in Cork city on January 16th, 2020. He had been on trial at the Central Criminal Court, which is sitting in Croke Park, for almost three weeks before the case collapsed.
The DPP will enter a nolle prosequi against the teenager in due course, meaning that the State will not be proceeding with the charge of producing a knife against him.
The accused, who was 14 at the time of the incident, had pleaded not guilty to producing an article capable of inflicting serious injury in the course of a dispute, to wit a knife, in a manner likely to unlawfully intimidate another person.
Before the State opened its case on May 28th, the boy pleaded guilty to committing violent disorder with two other persons present together, using or threatening to use unlawful violence, and such conduct taken together would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at Bandon Road in Cork city to fear for his or another person’s safety at the said place on the same occasion.
‘Tragic situation’
The jury was told the events of the case related to “a tragic situation” where Mr Blair (20), a chemical engineering student at Cork Institute of Technology, died at Cork University Hospital last year after being stabbed in the neck. Another juvenile has already pleaded guilty to his murder.
Addressing the jury of eight men and four women on Wednesday, Mr Justice David Keane explained that he had been informed by prosecution counsel John Fitzgerald SC, who acts on behalf of the DPP, that the prosecution against the juvenile for the production of the knife had been “discontinued”.
“That means that the present trial is at an end,” he said.
Before discharging the jury, Mr Justice Keane said that much is spoken about human rights and Constitutional rights in our democracy and if these rights are to be protected, then it was necessary for people to discharge their civic duty. “You have properly discharged your civic duty by acting as jurors in this trial. The subject matter you had to deal with made your experience particularly challenging and difficult,” he added.
The judge then thanked the jurors for their service and exempted them from jury service for five years. “The trial to which you have been listening and would have deliberated on is in effect at an end and you are free to go,” he concluded.
Members of the Blair family were present in court for the proceedings.
When the jury had left the courtroom, Mr Fitzgerald told the judge that in view of the accused’s age there was a requirement that the court direct a probation report, which must be prepared within 28 days.
Mr Justice Keane said he would direct a probation report and he remanded the juvenile on continuing bail until July 12th.