Court Case In Sligo

breakemall

Interesting read in the Sligo Champion https://www.independent.ie/regionals/sligochampion/news/mum-out-walking-claims-gun-shots-fired-near-her-41004482.html

Great to see a Judge with a bit of common sense, not so great to see legal eagles claim you have to be 60m from a road when shooting or that badgers are shot in the shooting season...

Cass

Didn't see the entire article, but as we keep preaching, their arguments are based on fiction but have the moral impetus of "won't someone think of the children".

breakemall

What is worse is that it was the defence who came up with the fantasy "60m" regulation, and shooting badgers in November?

Cass

Really! I assumed by the context of your OP that it was the prosecution saying this. Beggars belief.

A chap I know was in a spot of legal trouble. HIS brief tried to tell him hunting at night waas illegal, having a lamp was illegal, shooting foxes was illegal. As I told him you don't need to worry about the prosecution if your solicitor is like that cause he is making their case for them.

I don't expect all solicitors to know every aspect of every law/act. How could they? However its hard enough fight your position when those supposedly on your side are that ignorant.

Munsterlad102

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118109346#Comment_118109346

Is there a minimum distance you have to be from a road before you can start shooting?

Cass

Summary Jurisdiction (Ireland) Act, 1851, section 10(2):

................ or discharge any firearms on any public road, or within sixty feet of the centre thereof,..............

60ft = 20yrds/18mtrs.

Mississippi.

Measured from the center of the road. Given that an L road is about 15 ft and maybe a 5 ft ditch on the side of it, 12 good paces from it and you're fully complaint

Feisar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118109346#Comment_118109346

What's badgers being shot got to do with the whole thing? I can't read the meat of the article.

breakemall

"Mr McGovern said these parties didn’t know each other only to see and Mr Taaffe has been involved in gun clubs where people shoot badgers, foxes and grey crows during the shooting season in November". Mr McGovern was the defence solicitor.

My concern is the lack of knowledge among those who should have brushed up on their facts before the case, particularly when someone is facing a charge as serious as an allegation they did discharge a firearm being reckless as to whether any person was injured or not.

Rescueme0007

I recently had the disagreeable experience of being questioned by the Gardaí, due to having discharged my firearm (lawfully and safely) when I was well over 300 metres from the nearest road, because a Belgian "blow in" complained that it was "noisy" (who would have guessed). Not faulting the Gardaí, of course they have to follow up on any complaint involving the use of firearms. The complainant is clearly a Category A gobshite, dreadful waste of tax payers money!

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118110935#Comment_118110935

15ft road and 5ft ditch would need almost another 48ft. Even if you knew your pace was 4ft exactly. You want to get well away from any subjectivity.

Its not about where you are, but what you can prove. Too many Karen’s about.

deerhunter1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118109346#Comment_118109346

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118110057#Comment_118110057

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126280#Comment_118126280

Discharge of Firearm on a Public Road

Section 10 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Ireland) Act, 1851, which remains in force, makes it an offence to discharge a firearm on any public road, or within sixty feet of the centre thereof. The stipulated distance of sixty feet is referred to in the Commissioner’s Guidelines of 2009, in the context of shooting of foxes, The 1851 Act makes it an offence to “slaughter any beast, or leave any dead beast, or skin or permit to be skinned any beast, on any public road or within thirty feet of the centre thereof, save within any house or enclosed yard”.

Section 8 of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990 provides that a person who discharges a firearm being reckless as to whether any person will be injured or not, shall be guilty of an offence, whether any such injury is caused or not, shall be guilty of an offence.