A civil injuries court case taken by a former Navan councillor against his next door neighbour took a dramatic turn at the local court when the former councillor left the witness box during the hearing and walked out of the court building. Wayne Forde, Parnell Park, Navan took the case against Thomas Madden following an incident outside their homes on 20th October 2024.
Mr Forde said in evidence during the 30-minute hearing that on the date in question he was out sweeping leaves at the front of his house. He said he had a lot of leaves in his arms and he felt a seizure coming on and had to grab onto something, a nearby railing. He said Mr Madden came out “like a raging bull” and said to him “what the effin hell are you doing?” and he replied that he was sweeping up the leaves. Mr Forde alleged that his neighbour said “you’re nothing but an effing B”.
“He went to grab my arm and grabbed my sweeping brush. He started pulling the brush to pull it off me and he kept pulling and pulling and he was that strong I eventually had to let go. He snapped my brush over his knee causing criminal damage to my property. He went to put his two hands on the railing to jump over it. So I got up and I ran in and rang the guards”.
“When the guards came you could see my arm all bruised”. He said he had a letter from his GP indicating that the bruising was “from a pulling injury”. Mr Forde said that that was “pure assault”.
He said he had received a one minute seven second video from Mr Madden’s solicitor “showing me throwing the leaves into the garden. I explained what happened. It’s absolutely laughable because there is no audio on this”. He said that for the following two weeks he was in “awful pain” and had to attend A&E on six occasions and was on pain medication. He had had to attend a medical practice 50 times. He said he could not sleep at night on his right arm. He could no longer swim or play pitch and putt as he used do.
The witness was cross-examined by solicitor Michael O’Byrne (acting for solicitor Pat O’Reilly) who said that Mr Forde had sworn an affidavit saying that some leaves had gone into his neighbour’s garden “by pure accident because it was windy that day”. Mr O’Byrne said that Mr Forde had received CCTV footage which showed him “walking over and dumping leaves into your neighbour’s garden”.
“Well, I was trying to hold onto something or I would have fell”, he replied. Mr O’Byrne said to him that some weeks ago Mr Forde said in an affidavit that leaves blew in because it was windy. After the various parties viewed CCTV footage in court Judge Eirinn McKiernan interjected “You’re throwing the leaves into that garden”. Mr O’Byrne said that the footage showed that none of the leaves on the ground were moving at all despite Mr Forde having previously claimed it was a windy day. The judge said that Mr Forde had bent down, picked up leaves, walked across and put them over the railing.
Mr O’Byrne said there was “an entire history of Mr Forde persecuting my client”. He told the judge “this man is lying”. The judge said she had seen the plaintiff putting the leaves over the railing and did not see him lying on the railing for support. Mr Forde said he had his left hand on the railing. His neighbour had “whacked” him with the brush.
Mr O’Byrne said in reply said his client Mr Madden would say it “looked” as if he whacked Mr Forde with the brush but in fact he broke the brush on the corner of the building. The judge said “He hit the wall, he didn’t hit you Mr Forde. He pulled it from you but he hit it against
the wall”.
During further cross-examination by the solicitor Mr Forde stood up and prepared to leave the witness box. Both the judge and Mr O’Byrne asked Mr Forde to stay as the case was not finished but he left the courtroom. The judge said she was not satisfied with the evidence given by the plaintiff Mr Forde and dismissed his claim against Mr Madden with costs ordered against Mr Forde.
