A PROSECUTION WITNESS who failed to turn up to give evidence at the murder trial of law professor Diarmuid Phelan has been arrested and taken into custody by gardaí, the High Court heard today.

Liam Mulholland, senior prosecution solicitor with the Director of Public Prosecutions, told Mr Justice Liam Kennedy during a brief remand hearing that agreement had been reached with Kallum Coleman’s legal team for his remand in custody to appear at the Criminal Courts of Justice next week.

Barrister Keith Spencer, counsel for Coleman, said his client was consenting to his remand in custody and added that gardai had given an undertaking that he would be lodged in Mountjoy Prison until next Tuesday due to a fear by Coleman for his safety if detained in Cloverhill Prison.

Mr Mulholland, confirming to the court that such an undertaking had been given, led garda evidence of Mr Coleman, from Drimnagh, Dublin, having been arrested in the early hours of this morning. Judge Kennedy heard Coleman had been cautioned at the time of arrest.

Mr Spencer, who appeared with solicitor Lorraine Stephens, said his client had been arrested by arrangement and he told the court that a jury in the trial of Diarmuid Phelan, for the alleged murder of trespasser Keith Conlon, had returned a verdict of not guilty last week.

Mr Spencer told Judge Kennedy details of the circumstances his client was facing would be outlined specifically next Tuesday morning to Mr Justice Paul McDermott before whom the proceedings have been entered for mention in Court 6 at the CCJ.

Last week Phelan, a senior counsel and law professor at Trinity College, walked free from the Central Criminal Court after the jury found him not guilty of the murder of Conlon at Hazelgrove Farm, Kiltalown Lane, Tallaght, in February 2022.