*Junior Minister, Anne Rabbitte (FF) TD.
A JUNIOR Government Minister has stated that “a line was crossed” the night a Gort farmer threw a sealed bag of cow dung towards her at a public meeting.
Galway East TD and Minister of State at the Dept of Health and at the Dept of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Anne Rabbitte (FF) made her comment to reporters outside Ennis Courthouse on Wednesday after Judge Alec Gabbett found Joseph Baldwin guilty of the assault of Minister Rabbitte at a public meeting in Gort on January 4th 2023 and causing a breach of the peace at the same meeting.
Speaking to reporters after the conclusion of the case, Minister Rabbitte said, “Being a politician, one expects the rough and tumble of debate at all times, and what we have seen today is that the line was crossed (that night) and the judge acknowledged that the line was crossed and I am glad that this has been brought to a conclusion and look it, this is the end of it as far as I am concerned”.
Asked what message the Judge’s verdict sends out, Minister Rabbitte said, “There is a line and you can’t cross the line”.
She said that there are numerous ways to engage and having your point of view and the ruling means you can’t engage in premeditated actions.
Earlier in court, Judge Gabbett said that he was “satisfied that Anne Rabbitte was assaulted on the night in question”.
He said, “The assault is very clearly set out on CCTV which is the best evidence before the court and shows the full nature of what occurred including the injured party’s reaction and thus apprehension”.
He said that Joseph Baldwin “did breach the peace by his actions and did act in a threatening, abusive and insulting manner”.
Judge Gabbett said that he “must convict” Joseph Baldwin of the assault and the public order offences.
Mr Baldwin (39) of Ballyaneen, Gort had denied assaulting Anne Rabbitte on January 4th 2023 at the public meeting concerning a planned biogas plant at O’Sullivan’s hotel in Gort, contrary to Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act and the Section 6 Public Order offence.
Judge Gabbett had earlier ruled that Mr Baldwin had a case to answer when rejecting solicitor, Daragh Hassett’s application that he dismiss the charge made against his client after the conclusion of the State’s case at a one day hearing last month.
In evidence last month, Minister Rabbitte wept in the witness box as she recalled the incident.
She said that before Mr Baldwin threw the bag towards her he said to her, “‘I am not forgetting about you, there is one for you Rabbitte’ and then he flung a bag as well”.
After the bag fell on the ground beside her, Minister Rabbitte said, “I didn’t know if the two legs were going to go from under me”.
She said, “Someone picked it up and said that it was a bag of shit”.
Minister Rabbitte said, “I wanted to scream my head off because no one said that what was happening was wrong”.
Minister Rabbitte said that she distracted herself at the meeting by taking out her phone and sending out a tweet “I can’t believe a bag of sh1t has been thrown at me”.
On going to the local Garda station to have what occurred ‘noted’, Minister Rabbitte said, “It is tough we do what we do but I love it and it is a privilege and I apologise judge to be bawlin’ my way through it, but someone had to speak up”.
As part of the State case, the ziplock bag that contained the remains of the cow dung was shown to court.
In evidence on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Baldwin entered the witness box in his own defence.
He said that he only lived 500 metres from the planned biogas plant “and it will really affect me where I am”.
Mr Baldwin said that he was “fed up” and “I just said ‘I had enough’”.
He recounted how he went to his farm-yard before the public meeting to get the cow dung.
He said, “I went down to the yard and I had a penknife with me. I didn’t scrape it off the ground but took it off the bar of a gate and put it into the bags and sealed the bags”.
He said that the bags were cleaned and locked and that he had a shower before going to the meeting.
Mr Baldwin said that Minister Rabbitte and Ciaran Cannon TD (FG) who attended the meeting had voted in 2021 for a Climate Action Plan and part of that was rolling out 200 biogas plants across the country.
Mr Baldwin said that after ‘tossing’ one bag forward towards Deputy Cannon he turned and ‘tossed’ the other towards Anne Rabbitte.
He said that he “had no intention of hitting them”.
He said that his original idea was to leave the bags at the top table at the meeting but there was no top table.
He said, “I did not intend to hurt anyone…I was fed up of looking at so many problems in the area and no help from the TDs at all, at all”.
He said, “It was all over the media that I was being accused of assault. There were 400 people and I was meeting people every day and not one person turns around to me to say ‘Joe, that was wrong what you done’. It was the other way”.
Mr Baldwin said that video footage of the night “would clearly show that I wasn’t there to cause trouble”.
Mr Baldwin said that the bag did not hit Anne Rabbitte and the two bags were sealed and light.
He said, “Two lads that were there that I know from the local mart and I don’t think they would be too worried about a bag brushing off them. It is something we are used to in an agricultural community”.
Counsel for the State, Geri Silke BL put it to Mr Baldwin, “You took the law into your own hands and you came prepared with two bags and threw them at two public representatives and you felt that was warranted”.
Asked was it a legitimate protest, Mr Baldwin said that it was.
Ms Silke asked, “Is it the case that every TD that doesn’t do what you want should have a bag of manure thrown at them”.
Mr Baldwin said that Government Minister, Eamon Ryan once tipped his rubbish in the Dail and another politician brought a glass of dirty water in the Dáil. He said, “My point was that if ye want to bring shit into the town I was going to put it in front of them”.
Asked by Ms Silke did he see anything wrong with what he did, Mr Baldwin said, “If I was thought that Ann Rabbitte was going to go up on Twitter within a minute of it happening and it was going to create such a media circus and have an effect on my work and on my family I wouldn’t have done it”.
Asked why he didn’t write a letter to highlight his concerns about the plant, Mr Baldwin said, “Letters don’t seem to work anymore”.
Ms Silke said that Mr Baldwin “never thought of the upset you caused to Ms Rabbitte” and in reply, Mr Baldwin said, “There was no upset caused to anyone in that hall”.
In an oral submission, Ms Silke told Judge Gabbett, “To throw a bag of SH at a public representative who has been voted in by the same constituents of that community is not acceptable under any standard”.
Asking that the charges be dismissed, Daragh Hassett told Judge Gabbett said that the DPP case against Mr Baldwin was grounded on an initial complaint by Ms Rabbitte that the bag thrown by Mr Baldwin had struck her on the right upper body and struck Deputy Cannon.
Mr Hassett said that the DPP in May 2023 had directed that Mr Baldwin be prosecuted for assault and he first appeared in court in September 2023.
Mr Hassett said that it was only in January 2024 that the video evidence showing that the bags had not struck Ms Rabbitte or Mr Cannon had become available and were made available to the defence.
Mr Hassett said that the decision to prosecute Mr Baldwin was based on the word of Ms Rabbitte “who has proven to be a very inaccurate storyteller”.
Mr Hassett said that Ms Rabbitte was an emotive witness and “cried from start to finish” in her direct evidence.
Mr Hassett said that Ms Rabbitte’s evidence in court “is that she feels that she was assaulted which is fundamentally different to the statement given to Gardaí”.
Mr Hassett said that Ms Rabbitte going on her phone after the bag was lobbed to send out a tweet about what happened was not evidence of someone who was put in fear or had a reasonable apprehension that she was going to be assaulted.
Judge Gabbett has adjourned sentencing to December 18th to allow the preparation of a Probation Report on Mr Baldwin. Judge Gabbett said that it is apparent that Mr Baldwin had a number of stressors in his life at the time of the incident.
Mr Hassett said that his client lost his job at the time but has recently got back into work.
