A man who was wrongly detained in Mountjoy prison for two weeks was freed by the High Court yesterday, after it heard he was mistaken for another man.
The man, a Traveller, was released by Mr Justice Butler after a lawyer for the prison authorities said a garda was now satisfied he was the wrong man.
The judge heard that another man of the same name, with an address at a campsite in the Dundrum area of Co Dublin, had been charged before Dun Laoghaire District Court and sentenced to four months for a traffic offence.
The judge was told a man of the same name who had been arrested by gardai on July 4th was not the same person referred to on the committal warrant.
Mr Michael Kelleher, for the man who had been in prison, said on affidavit he believed his client, although having the same Christian name and surname as that on the committal warrant, was not the same person.
He was advised the man arrested had protested his innocence when first arrested but was brought to Mountjoy prison.
