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Court Hears Dublin Man Accused Westmeath Councillor Of Being Antifa Operative

Thursday, 3 April 2025 12:22

Craig Fizsimmons, 50, of Bayside Park, Dublin 13, leaving court where he was accused of harassment and harmful communications about Sinn Fein councillor David Jones, photo credit Tom Tuite

The trial collapsed yesterday after the judge determined due to the lack of a witness to confirm evidence.

A Dublin man posted unfounded allegations about a Sinn Fein councillor and threatened to "expose" him as the operator of an Antifa social media profile that "stalked" Irish people, a court heard.

Craig Fitzsimmons, 50, of Bayside Park, Dublin 13, pleaded not guilty to making public posts on a Telegram chat group calling David Jones, a member of Westmeath Co Council, a terrorist paedophile and publishing his mobile phone number.

The offences, under section 4 of the Harassment and Harmful Communications Act, were said to have happened from May 21 - 28, 2022.

However, his non-jury trial before Judge Deirdre Gearty at Mullingar District Court collapsed yesterday.

She dismissed the case due to the lack of a witness to confirm the origin of evidence taken from social media, and Mr Fitzsimmons walked free from court.

During the hearing, the judge heard how the local politician for the Mullingar – Kinnegad District contacted Garda Simon Connaughton on August 26, 2022.

He complained that he had been subjected to unwanted phone calls, posts and text messages.

He provided the garda with printouts and screenshots of the messages and calls.

One of the images showed a Telegram messaging app account called Statistical Soldier, allegedly in the defendant's name.

Messages sent to Mr Jones mentioned the left-wing group Antifa and claimed the organisation incited the murder of Irish people and stalked them, he alleged.

One of the messages directed at the councillor said that he "needed to be exposed", would be held accountable, and go to jail, and the message sender referred to him as a paedophile.

The councillor told the court he did not know members of Antifa or have connections with the group's activities.

Under cross-examination, he replied, "I would not know the members. Is there a list?".

He said there were people in all parties who were anti-fascist. In addition to the messages and posts, he reckoned he received about 30 phone calls.

Councillor Jones provided the phone number used to contact him.

Gardai tried to trace the phone, but it was unregistered.

Then, Garda Connaughton ran the number through the Garda Pulse records system, and it was returned as associated with Craig Fitzsimmons.

He went to the man's house, and Mr Fitzsimmons voluntarily went to Raheny station to make a statement, which was read in court.

He claimed to Garda Connaughton that he wanted to write about the councillor for a publication called Irish Inquiry and expose him.

Mr Fitzsimmons informed the officer that Antifa made unspeakable comments about him, "bleating about my alleged harassment of David Jones".

He maintained that Antifa would not make that statement unless the complainant were in control of them.

He accused the group of making untrue claims about people falsely calling them Nazis, bigots or homophobes.

But Mr Fitzsimmons admitted he had no evidence against the councillor and did not make a formal complaint against him when offered the opportunity.

The accused told gardai he had been blacklisted online.

As he was about to testify in the hearing, his counsel said the defence would introduce screenshot images as evidence.

Dismissing the entire case, however, Judge Gearty expected to hear from people from the social media organisations about the provenance of evidence offered by both the defence and prosecution.

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