The High Court has refused an application to prohibit the trial of a man charged with assault, despite finding about nine and a half months of blameworthy delay by prosecutorial authorities.
The applicant sought judicial review, arguing that delay in bringing the charge meant he would face trial as an adult rather than as a juvenile. The court accepted that he had lost anonymity and the statutory right to have the trial judge direct a probation report. It concluded, however, that he had not shown that the balance favoured stopping the trial.
The alleged assault took place in Drogheda on 4 July 2015, when the applicant was 16. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) alleged that he assaulted another person, causing harm, contrary to section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. The offence carries a potential five-year custodial sentence. These are allegations; the judgment did not determine guilt.
The court identified blameworthy delay of about two and a half months between 23 July and 8 October 2015, and about seven months between the applicant’s arrest on 4 January 2016 and the DPP’s prosecution directions on 2 November. It did not find blameworthy delay while Gardaí were trying to locate him after receiving the directions. Nor did it find blameworthy delay from October 2015 to January 2016, when it considered the applicant had been evasive and had contributed to the delay. The total prosecutorial delay was approximately nine and a half months.
In weighing prejudice against the public interest, the judge was not satisfied that the case would have remained in the District Court or that the applicant had been prejudiced by losing that possibility. The District Court had refused jurisdiction, and the judge accepted that the DPP would not have consented to the case being heard there. The judge also considered that a custodial sentence was likely even if the applicant had been tried as a juvenile. He was detained at Oberstown on other charges in January 2017, and the court considered those proceedings were unlikely to conclude before his 18th birthday on 27 February 2017.
The court acknowledged prejudice from the loss of anonymity and the statutory right to a probation report, but found it outweighed by the public interest in having the serious charge proceed. It refused the relief sought; the judgment did not decide the assault charge itself.