A WELL known Letterkenny contractor and his son spent forty-eight hours in a Dublin jail earlier this week on contempt of court charges.
Mr Brendan Gildea and Noel Gildea were taken from their home on Tuesday morning by members of An Garda Síochána and appeared before a Judge in a Dublin High Court later in the day. They were subsequently removed to Mountjoy Jail.
The Gildea’s legal team were before the courts yesterday, Thursday, trying to get their clients home ahead of the weekend.
A member of the Common Law Society (formerly Helping Hands), Mr Brendan Gildea was involved in a tense stand-off with An Garda Síochána over a disputed four-acre site at Ardarawer, Kiltoy, back in September.
At the time Mr Brendan Gildea lodged an adverse possession claim (sometimes described as squatter’s rights) in the High Court.
Mr Gildea and his son were jailed because they refused to purge their contempt of court in relation to the property at Kiltoy.
According to the High Court papers the matter first came before Mr Justice Barniville on July 30.
The plaintiffs were listed as CR Renaissance Properties Limited and Roarty Developments Limited with Brendan Gildea and Noel Gildea the named defendants.
It ordered the defendants remove the container placed on Mr Roarty’s lands in Kiltoy as well as removing any obstacles blocking access to the site.
It also ordered that the defendants, pending the trial of the action or further order in the meantime, do not access the site or trespass on Mr Roarty’s lands.
Last year, planning permission was granted to Creeslough-based building contractor Mr Charles Roarty of CR Renaissance Properties Limited and Roarty Developments Limited, to develop 46 units made up of three-storey duplex and semi-detached dwelling. houses on the site which is close to Meadow Hill.
At that time, Common Law Society spokesman Mr Michael McGee, who describes himself as being a “man aiding and assisting his fellow man”, claimed that High Court papers handed to Mr
Gildea were nothing more than ‘pieces of paper’.
The spokesman for the Common Law Society, which claims to be educating the people to protect themselves, said that Mr Gildea was within his rights to protect his property.
“These people have illegally entered a site that Brendan Gildea has had possession of for the past twenty-nine years. He has an adverse possession claim in with the High Court and Land Registry and until such times as that is sorted this site has to stay the way it is,” Mr
McGee said.
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