Can the Gardai do this?

irishpal25

I just got a call from my OH to tell me the Gardai came to her house with a summons for her brother. He no longer resides there and they also have no contact with him and don't know where he lives.

She refused to take the summons on that grounds and kept refusing while the gard insisted she take it.

Then the guard stepped into her front porch and put his hand in her pocket and put the summons in there and said "there now your taking it".

Surely this can't be legal, she is really upset with it and feels violated. She went up to the gardai station to make a complaint and left the summons there.

MagicSean

A Garda can serve a summons on a family member at the most recent known address. As to the manner of service, that's what the Ombudsman is for.

Marcusm

MagicSean wrote: »

A Garda can serve a summons on a family member at the most recent known address. As to the manner of service, that's what the Ombudsman is for.

If he entered her house and made contact with her to put it in her pocket, that sounds like a matter for the guards! Surely someone in charge at he station could arrange an apology rather than a complaints process. Community policing by consent?

January

If you don't get satisfaction from the Superintendent of that Garda station then you go straight to the Ombudsman.

nessie911

Why did she refuse to take the summons, why not take it and tell them that she would not be able to give it to him.

Maybe there sick of geting that excuse from people. I dont know where they are.

irishpal25

nessie911 wrote: »

Why did she refuse to take the summons, why not take it and tell them that she would not be able to give it to him.

Maybe there sick of geting that excuse from people. I dont know where they are.

I think she didn't take it because she sees it as nothing to do with her family now and not knowing that she has to take it because she is family.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

krd

MagicSean wrote: »

A Garda can serve a summons on a family member at the most recent known address. As to the manner of service, that's what the Ombudsman is for.

I've read before they do not even need to serve the summons on a person - just drop it through the letter box, of a relative.

Is this true?

slimjimmc

Legal? seems so,

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/criminal_law/criminal_trial/summons.html

Service of the summons

The rules which govern the service of summonses are to be found in the Rules of the District Court (Order 10). Basically a summons can be served on you in the following ways:

Personal delivery: by handing a copy of the summons to you or by leaving it at your last known abode or your place of work, or with your spouse, child or other relative.

irishpal25

slimjimmc wrote: »

Legal? seems so,

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/criminal_law/criminal_trial/summons.html

Thanks for the info I assumed that much to be so but that still doesn't give him the right to put it in her pocket he could have easily left it on the doorstep or something like that.

MagicSean

Marcusm wrote: »

If he entered her house and made contact with her to put it in her pocket, that sounds like a matter for the guards! Surely someone in charge at he station could arrange an apology rather than a complaints process. Community policing by consent?

Yes it reminds me of the scenes from Syria. Blatant abuse of rights. I don't know how that Garda is sleeping at night.

discus

MagicSean wrote: »

Yes it reminds me of the scenes from Syria. Blatant abuse of rights. I don't know how that Garda is sleeping at night.

Amen MagicSean. Imagine that, a garda carrying out a legal act. This forum takes all sorts. Apologise to her, because she was refusing to carry out the legal obligation of recieving a family members summons to his last known place of residence? My god... Some people.

irishpal25

discus wrote: »

Amen MagicSean. Imagine that, a garda carrying out a legal act. This forum takes all sorts. Apologise to her, because she was refusing to carry out the legal obligation of recieving a family members summons to his last known place of residence? My god... Some people.

That still does not give him the right to step into her private residence and put his hand in her pocket!!

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Seth Brundle

discus wrote: »

Amen MagicSean. Imagine that, a garda carrying out a legal act. This forum takes all sorts. Apologise to her, because she was refusing to carry out the legal obligation of recieving a family members summons to his last known place of residence? My god... Some people.

From reading slimjimmc's quoted piece, the garda is within their rights to give it to a relative. However, it does not say that the relative is obliged to accept it (although the quoted piece is not the actual legislation).

krd

kbannon wrote: »

From reading slimjimmc's quoted piece, the garda is within their rights to give it to a relative. However, it does not say that the relative is obliged to accept it (although the quoted piece is not the actual legislation).

The version I've heard, is it is considered served if the Garda drops it in the vicinity of where they have a reason to believe the person or a member of their family may be. And that it doesn't need to be served on the person.

Now, without going into the details, I haven't spoken to any member of my family in years.

I believe my brother, who I lived with for a short time, years and years and years ago, may have received a summons for me (minor "offence" - I don't do the major ones - not displaying my insurance disk properly). I don't think he knew what it was - so he put it with other post and forgot about it - for what must have been a few years. I think my mother eventually found it - and sent me a message.

I went to the Garda station, and asked did they have anything on me - and the Garda said no. And then I asked him would he sign a statement, saying I'd been asking and he wouldn't.

Now, we're talking years - six or seven years at this point. As far as I am concerned, I have not been served.

I am a little paranoid about it. I have a feeling there's something out there, that has snowballed from a small fine, into a long custodial sentence.

Zambia

Are you saying your OH has no way of contacting her brother.

She does not have
any mobile number for him,
any family contacts,
any Facebook friends that are interconnected,
no idea where he works?

I find that hard to believe, basically I think your OH is being lazy.

She should just take the summons make a few calls and send it on.

Garda numbers are being reduced the Garda that are left are probably copping a load more work. Spending hours looking for an address for you OH brother because she does not "want" to get in contact with him is just weak.

Lets not forget that complaint is going to generate a load more pointless work as well.

stoneill

The original question is, can the gardai do this.
Deliver a summons to a relative, yes.
Enter a private dwelling without a warrant and not given permission, no.
Intimidate a member of the public, no.

jonsnow

Zambia wrote: »

Are you saying your OH has no way of contacting her brother.

She does not have
any mobile number for him,
any family contacts,
any Facebook friends that are interconnected,
no idea where he works?

I find that hard to believe, basically I think your OH is being lazy.

She should just take the summons make a few calls and send it on.

Garda numbers are being reduced the Garda that are left are probably copping a load more work. Spending hours looking for an address for you OH brother because she does not "want" to get in contact with him is just weak.

Lets not forget that complaint is going to generate a load more pointless work as well.

If she doesn,t want to play Junior G-woman and help track down her never-do-well brother then that is her look out.Maybe she(like 99% of people) doesn,t want to help put her brother in jail or contribute to him being in more trouble.

MagicSean

stoneill wrote: »

The original question is, can the gardai do this.
Deliver a summons to a relative, yes.
Enter a private dwelling without a warrant and not given permission, no.
Intimidate a member of the public, no.

He didn't enter the dwelling. By your interpretation the postman trespasses if his fingers pass the threshold while delivering a letter. However if you can show me which offence the Garda has committed I will reconsider my position.

Intimidate? What story did you read?

jonsnow

MagicSean wrote: »

He didn't enter the dwelling. By your interpretation the postman trespasses if his fingers pass the threshold while delivering a letter. However if you can show me which offence the Garda has committed I will reconsider my position.

Intimidate? What story did you read?

He may have committed battery.At common law, battery is the tort of intentionally and voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with a person or to something closely associated with them (e.g. a hat, a purse).

I remember clearly from first year criminal law in college where an english policeman was found guilty of battery for removing a flower from a womans hat-I think it was an anti-war lily during world war 1.As the contact with her clothing was unconsented, unwanted and offensive to the woman the policeman had committed an offence.

Zambia

jonsnow wrote: »

If she doesn,t want to play Junior G-woman and help track down her never-do-well brother then that is her look out.Maybe she(like 99% of people) doesn,t want to help put her brother in jail or contribute to him being in more trouble.

The word tough comes to mind.

MagicSean

jonsnow wrote: »

He may have committed battery.At common law, battery is the tort of intentionally and voluntarily bringing about an unconsented harmful or offensive contact with a person or to something closely associated with them (e.g. a hat, a purse).

I remember clearly from first year criminal law in college where an english policeman was found guilty of battery for removing a flower from a womans hat-I think it was an anti-war lily during world war 1.As the contact with her clothing was unconsented, unwanted and offensive to the woman the policeman had committed an offence.

Was the common law offence of battery not abolished with the introduction of the non-fatal offences against the person act?

jonsnow

MagicSean wrote: »

Was the common law offence of battery not abolished with the introduction of the non-fatal offences against the person act?

You are of course correct.I just always remembered that case for some reason and typed without fully thinking it through.

jonsnow

Zambia wrote: »

The word tough comes to mind.

Tough for who?She can,t be forced to so I guess its tough on the Gardai as they are going to have to track him down themselves.

discus

jonsnow wrote: »

Tough for who?She can,t be forced to so I guess its tough on the Gardai as they are going to have to track him down themselves.

I'll wage a tenner that it wouldnt be a case of "tough **** for the gardai" if the gardai were looking for the witness of a grievous or fatal car accident you were involved in, or someone who owed you child support etc.

jonsnow

It doesn,t matter why the gardai are serving a summons on someone.If the family are not in contact with that person,do not know where they are or heaven forbid do not want to cooperate:eek: the gardai cannot force the family to go and track down the family member if they don,t want to.So it is not tough on the family as they have to do precisely nothing-it is tough on the Gardai as if they want to track down the person they are going to have to do it some other way

jblack

MagicSean wrote: »

Was the common law offence of battery not abolished with the introduction of the non-fatal offences against the person act?

s2. NFOAP.

discus

Recieving a summons doesn't mean that the family have to track down the person. They literally just have to recieve it from the gardai.

Do you acknowledge now that it's fairly idiotic not to accept the summons into their home?

jonsnow

discus wrote: »

Recieving a summons doesn't mean that the family have to track down the person. They literally just have to recieve it from the gardai.

Do you acknowledge now that it's fairly idiotic not to accept the summons into their home?

You do know that I was responding to another post where a poster said that the sister should track down her brother and send on the summons.I said that in reality a lot of people don,t want to send the summons on and don't have to.To which he responded "tough".I never said that she shouldn't accept the summons (although I think you are entitled to refuse to accept it if you want).I said that she doesn't have to help the gardai to serve it by uncovering the location of her brother and informing them..

Zambia

jonsnow wrote: »

You do know that I was responding to another post where a poster said that the sister should track down her brother and send on the summons.I said that in reality a lot of people don,t want to send the summons on and don't have to.To which he responded "tough".I never said that she shouldn't accept the summons (although I think you are entitled to refuse to accept it if you want).I said that she doesn't have to help the gardai to serve it by uncovering the location of her brother and informing them..

You are correct she does not have to do anything by law however she has copped the summons its been left in her presence its served.

She can either send it on or ignore it.

She should know that if she does not give the summons to him and he fails to appear in will probably turn into a bench warrant for his arrest. So by not giving it to him she ends lands him in worse trouble.

jonsnow

Zambia wrote: »

You are correct she does not have to do anything by law however she has copped the summons its been left in her presence its served.

She can either send it on or ignore it.

She should know that if she does not give the summons to him and he fails to appear in will probably turn into a bench warrant for his arrest. So by not giving it to him she ends lands him in worse trouble.

Not necessarily though.I recently saw a similar case down the district Court were a guy had a summons served on his family who didn,t know where he was. They called around twice then did nothing for more than two years.A guard ran across the guy on the street and arrested him.He professed no knowledge of the summons and the judge believed him and tossed the case.

Zambia

jonsnow wrote: »

Not necessarily though.I recently saw a similar case down the district Court were a guy had a summons served on his family who didn,t know where he was. They called around twice then did nothing for more than two years.A guard ran across the guy on the street and arrested him.He professed no knowledge of the summons and the judge believed him and tossed the case.

Why was the case tossed ? The summons was served correctly if the bloke did not get it why should the case be thrown out?

jonsnow

Zambia wrote: »

So the Moral of the story is the Garda should have left the summons with the family in the first place.

They did leave the summons with the family.The family never contacted him so he never got it or never heard about it.The Statute of Limitations was up and the Judge felt that the guards hadn,t made any real effort to track him down and serve the summons.

The family had told the guards that they weren,t in contact with the man, didn,t know were he lived and wouldn,t be passing it onto him.The defence solicitor asked the guard had he made many efforts in tracking down the man.He said they had.But when he asked what they had done and the guard checked his notes it turned out they had called around twice in a short space of time to the family home(were he hadn,t lived for years) and had then done nothing for years.The judge tossed it as he felt these efforts were insufficient.

Zambia

Sorry I just changed mine when I realised I missed that part. Apologies

Anyway why was it thrown out?

slimjimmc

kbannon wrote: »

From reading slimjimmc's quoted piece, the garda is within their rights to give it to a relative. However, it does not say that the relative is obliged to accept it (although the quoted piece is not the actual legislation).

Order 10 of S.I. No. 93/1997 seems to be the relevant legaleese (dunno if it has been amended since).

One interesting statement allows the Court to consider a summons to validly served regardless of the method employed:

15. The Court may, if it sees fit so to do, deem the service of any document actually effected in any proceedings, even though not effected in a manner prescribed by these Rules, to be good and effected service.

jonsnow

slimjimmc wrote: »

Order 10 of S.I. No. 93/1997 seems to be the relevant legaleese (dunno if it has been amended since).

One interesting statement allows the Court to consider a summons to validly served regardless of the method employed:

The Court may, if it sees fit so to do Exactly it is to some extent at the Judges discretion.

Our man in Havana

It really makes no difference, as when the case comes up he will be convicted anyways and the Gardaí will be back to square 1 trying to enforce the penal warrant if he does not live at the address.

bedirect

service is fine, brother should not be giving that address, petty complaints clog up the system so real ones cant be investigated

seamus

I'm presuming that summons' aren't treated like normal mail where it would be an offence for someone to impede the delivery of such?

That is, if she knew where he was, but left it sitting in the house without telling him, would that be an offence?