The High Court has refused Michael Burns’s challenge to a District Court direction to provide prison records to the Minister for Justice for transmission to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The records were sought in connection with Northern Ireland charges arising from an alleged attempted murder and firearm offence in 1977.
Burns sought to have the direction quashed and to obtain declarations that releasing the records would breach his fair trial rights. He also argued that the District Judge acted unfairly by refusing an adjournment so his representative could prepare submissions. The High Court refused all relief.
The request, made by the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland in December 2013, sought records that might show Burns had suffered a gunshot wound or other hand injury before entering prison in this jurisdiction in 1977. The request said the material would assist an investigation into the alleged offences. It stated that the intended victim had fired a revolver during the attempted murder and wounded one attacker. Medical records obtained in Northern Ireland indicated Burns had suffered a gunshot wound to his hand before his arrest in 2013.
At a hearing on 1 April 2014, Burns’s solicitor sought an adjournment, saying detailed instructions had arrived the previous day and legal aid for the hearing was still being considered. He wished to prepare arguments about fair trial rights and the privacy of medical records. The Minister’s counsel opposed delay, pointing to prior notice and the presence of a prison official with the requested material. The District Judge refused the adjournment, citing Burns’s ability to challenge any evidence if it were used at trial.
A prison official then described 38 documents from Burns’s general file. They included prison officers’ reports about attempts to bring him to hospital for hand X-rays, medical records of appointments and observations, and a 1979 letter from Burns seeking temporary release for treatment. The State agreed that one report about an unrelated condition need not be sent.
In her judgment dated 18 August 2015, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley said Burns had provided no evidence establishing that the transfer would compromise the fairness of any trial, and had not advanced a substantive privacy claim in the High Court. She held that the designated judge’s function under the mutual assistance process was to receive the evidence specified in the request and forward it to the Minister, rather than decide whether prosecution in the requesting jurisdiction would be unfair.
The judge considered that the District Judge was right to treat the delay-related fair trial argument as outside that task. Although Burns had been put on notice so he could raise privacy concerns, the High Court was not told what submissions an adjournment would have enabled him to make. The court therefore refused the reliefs sought. The judgment did not determine whether the records could ultimately be used at trial or resolve a substantive challenge to their disclosure on privacy grounds.