Judge Keenan Johnson this Friday discharged the jury in the trial of Barry Carr (31) of Boeshill, Pettigo, Co Donegal, who was pleading not guilty to taking 75 cattle and 25 ewes worth €107,300 from a Kilbeggan farm in June 2015.

Judge Johnson told the jury that the trial could not continue because the prosecution had received information from the defence at a late stage in the proceedings and now needed time to assess it.

If the prosecution agrees with the defence on their assessment of this information, it will be the end of this case; otherwise a re-trial will take place next year, the judge explained.

The nature of the new information cannot legally be reported. because it was presented to the court privately in the absence of the jury.

The first thing I noticed, there was one animal on the avenue where she shouldn’t have been

On Thursday, the jury heard testimony from Niall Dillon, who farms at Cornaher, Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath.

Several of the stolen cattle and all 25 of the sheep belonged to the Department of Agriculture, which employs Dillon to store livestock on its behalf.

Mr Dillon recounted how he had driven up the farmlane on the 25 June to see the lock on the gate had been cut.

“The first thing I noticed, there was one animal on the avenue where she shouldn’t have been,” he said.

He told the court that he had not given anyone permission to enter the property or remove livestock from the farm.

Dillon contacted a neighbour to accompany him before entering the yard, where they discovered that all of the sheep and 75 of the 79 cattle on the farm had been stolen. They then immediately contacted An Garda Síochána.

2.30am garda check

Meanwhile on the night of the theft, gardaí had stopped a car travelling at speed around 2.30am, roughly 11 miles from the farm.

Gardaí commented that its two occupants appeared nervous at having been stopped. The driver was identified for the court as Francis Quinn, a mechanic in his 30s from Co Donegal, while the passenger of the car was Mr Carr.

Garda James Birmingham told the court: “They said they were looking for a petrol station, which I found unusual because they were on the outer road.”

Unusual turf

The gardaí requested permission to look in the boot and back of the car – they found wellington boots, work clothes and two sods of turf.

The turf was cut in an unusual dimension. It was discovered that a bog in Newforest, just four miles from the farm where the theft took place, was known to cut these specific sods for horticultural export.

The vehicle the men were driving was a silver Mercedes and had a Northern Irish registration – the plates were traced to an owner in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh.

In a witness statement read in court, the owner of the vehicle said that he had given the car to Mr Quinn to be repaired before the MOT (NCT in the Republic of Ireland) and that he had been unaware the car had been used to travel to the Mullingar area.

Mr Carr was subsequently arrested and charged later in 2015.

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