Kevin Lunney trial: Bid to rule out CCTV evidence
- Published
Kevin Lunney, 51, was kidnapped and tortured in 2019
A bid to stop CCTV footage being used in the trial of four men accused of abducting and assaulting Kevin Lunney is "contrary to the maintenance of social order", a court has heard.
Lawyers for two of the men have asked the court to rule out the footage on privacy grounds.
Mr Lunney, a Quinn Industrial Holdings executive, was abducted in County Fermanagh in 2019.
His leg was broken and the letters QIH carved into his chest.
Luke O'Reilly, 67, from Mullahoran Lower, Kilcogy, County Cavan; Darren Redmond, 27, from Caledon Road, East Wall, Dublin; Alan O'Brien, 40, of Shelmalier Road, East Wall, Dublin, are all charged with false imprisonment and intentionally causing serious harm to Mr Lunney.
Another 40-year-old man, known as YZ and who cannot be named for legal reasons, is also charged with the same offences.
They deny all the charges.
'No need for a balaclava'
Defence counsel for the unnamed man and Mr O'Brien have asked for the CCTV evidence to be ruled inadmissible.
They argued that gardai (Irish police) are using CCTV footage from private operators to conduct mass surveillance of the population which, they said, was a breach of constitutional and privacy rights and data protection regulations.
Prosecutor Sean Guerin said criminals would never need to wear a balaclava again if prosecutors were prevented from using CCTV footage.
He said such a move would be "manifestly contrary to the maintenance of social order".
The suggestion from the defence that the footage could have been interfered with prior to gardai accessing it was "fanciful" and "preposterous", he added.
He said it would require editing skills that would be "the envy of every Hollywood studio" to insert a Renault Kangoo van at precisely the times the prosecution alleges the vehicle was used in the abduction of Mr Lunney.
"If that were not remarkable enough, the defence case is that there is another sub-community of similarly talented editors who occupy residential and commercial premises between Fermanagh and Cavan, whose particular peccadillo is not to insert images of a Kangoo van, but to insert a black Audi or similar car with distinctive seven spoke alloys," he said.
"It is the merest, fanciful, frivolous possibility."
Mr Lunney, a father of six, was abducted close to his home on 17 September 2019.
The kidnapping lasted two-and-a-half hours, before the 51-year-old was left on a roadside in County Cavan.
The trial continues.