The High Court has refused all relief sought by Timothy Cunningham in a judicial review concerning £2.4 million seized from his home in 2005 and later forfeited by a Circuit Court order.
In a judgment delivered on 14 February 2019, Ms Justice O’Regan said Cunningham had not established a basis to extend the time limit for bringing the proceedings. He had also failed to discharge the burden of showing that the money belonged to him, particularly after the forfeiture order was made, the judge said.
Cunningham sought orders requiring the Garda Commissioner and the Criminal Assets Bureau to provide reports setting out the legal basis for the seizure, detention and distribution of the money. He also sought declarations that the seizure was unlawful and that his constitutional property rights had been infringed. The court refused all the reliefs claimed. No injunction was argued before the judge, and she noted that none appeared to have been made.
The judgment records that the money was taken during a search of Cunningham’s home on 16 February 2005 under section 29 of the Offences Against the State Act 1939. He was later convicted on ten counts connected to the Northern Bank robbery. After that conviction was quashed, he pleaded guilty to two counts at a retrial and was sentenced in February 2014. The Circuit Court made a forfeiture order concerning the money under section 61 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994.
Cunningham argued that the money’s presence in his home was prima facie evidence of his ownership, and that the forfeiture order did not take effect until it was drawn up. The respondents said he had been present in court with counsel when the order was made and had been informed of it by March 2017. They also relied on his 2005 Garda interviews, which they said contained acknowledgments that the money was understood to be proceeds of the robbery.
Justice O’Regan held that an oral court order takes effect when pronounced; the later written document records the order. She also found the judicial review was, in substance, a collateral challenge to the February 2014 order, which had not been appealed or separately challenged in time.
The judge said the information requests underlying the application had first been made in 2014, so the later repeated requests did not restart the time limit. Cunningham had not explained or justified the delay as required, and no formal application to extend time had been made. The judgment did not determine ownership in Cunningham’s favour; it concluded that he had not established it in these proceedings.