A woman, who is alleged to have passed drugs onto her then boyfriend by kissing him, had her case adjourned for a second time at Castlecomer District Court this week.
Suzanne Dowling, 19 Church Avenue, Castlecomer is alleged to have passed two wraps of suspected heroin to a prisoner who was attending Castlecomer District Court on February 16 last year.
Having heard the State's evidence, the defendant's solicitor Michael Lanigan claimed that the evidence given by prison officer John Howlin, at an earlier court sitting on May 19, was insufficient to identify the accused as being the person who passed the drugs.
"The evidence given by John Howlin was that a lady asked could she kiss a prisoner, but there is no evidence which shows that the lady was one and the same person," said Mr Lanigan.
Judge William Harnett adjourned the case until December 15 to allow Supt Walter O'Sullivan to refer the case to the previous superintendent, Supt Pat Mangan, who was in charge at the time it was first heard.The case was initially adjourned in May, in order to establish why the labelling on the outer and the inner packaging of the evidence was different. Forensic scientist at Garda Headquarters, Ms Sarah Campbell, told the court on Monday that her initials SC were on one package and the other initials AC on the other package, referred to another forensic scientist Anne Campbell, who carried out the analysis on the substance.
The alleged incident took place on February 16 ,2007 outside the court room in the hallway at around 2pm in front of five or six people where the prisoner was secured to the prison officer's left arm using eight inch rigid handcuffs. Prison officer, John Howlin told the court in May, that while they were waiting in the hallway, the defendant came up to the prisoner's left-hand side and immediately kissed him, passing a prohibited article. He then brought the prisoner out to the prison van and the article, which was later identified as being heroin, was recovered.
