Judge hits out over treatment of prisoners

A judge has criticised a practice of holding prisoners in prison vans before they are due to appear before her at Nenagh District Court.

A clearly annoyed Judge Elizabeth MacGrath said keeping prisoners in vans was “totally unacceptable”.

Speaking during a recent court session, she said she had no difficulty with prisoners being brought out of the vans and allowed sit in the courtroom while awaiting their cases.

What was totally unacceptable was to have them locked up in small vans for hours on end until their cases were ready to be heard.

From now on she wanted them to be brought into the courtroom when they arrived if there were no facilities to hold them other than in prison vans.

She said that if the situation was not resolved to her satisfaction she might have to take her complaint somewhere else.