Judge Patrick Clyne dismissed “with a vengeance” the case against a man accused of threatening to kill the mother of his child.
He said it was unfortunate that Leandro da Silva, who now lives at Dunbia House, Greenhills, Beauparc, County Meath, had to spend six days in custody.
He did not believe evidence given by the two main prosecution witnesses and it emerged also that the date of the alleged offence was wrong on the charge sheet.
Da Silva’s former partner Jennifer Smith accused him of threatening to kill her in a chip shop in Mullingar while she had a safety order against him.
Smith alleged that she and her cousin had three or four drinks in Mullingar and hadn’t seen da Silva in Lingi’s chip shop in the early hours of August 29.
She said he told her he would rather see their son dead than living with her and then whispered in her ear that he would kill her.
He first got in a row with her cousin Jamie-Ann Whaley, Smith said, and Jamie-Ann was removed from the chip shop by Daniela Lingi who later removed both Smith and da Silva.
Smith insisted that she was terrified of da Silva.
She said she believed his threats that he was going to kill her. “I believe I’m going to be found in an alleyway somewhere,” she said.
However, after hearing evidence from Daniela Lingi, who was subpoenaed by Mr Robert Marren to appear in court for the defence, and from da Silva, Judge Clyne threw out the case.
Da Silva said he’d remained quiet in the shop because he didn’t understand everything when people spoke quickly in English and because he knew if he breached the safety order, he wouldn’t get to see his son.
The judge asked if anyone had noticed that the evidence given was for the morning of August 29 and not for August 28 as given on the charge sheet.
He said dismissing the case was not a reflection on the gardaí but that he had “never seen such a concocted load of evidence” as presented by Smith and Whaley.
They had agreed under cross examination by Mr Marren that they had discussed the event before making their statements on Sunday evening.
After the alleged incident, gardaí would not take statements because the women had been drinking and they were advised to come back the next day.
Both were “too tight” to give evidence on the night of the alleged assault but when they came to gardaí sober the next day to make their statements, they effectively “used a cudgel” against the 28-year-old Brazilian.
“This case is dead in the water as of today,” he said, adding that it was “dismissed with a vengeance”.
