The High Court has refused an application to stop or stay a pending criminal trial of a man identified in the judgment as Mr C, who faces 42 indecent-assault charges relating to 14 people who were boarders at a country school where he taught. No trial had taken place when the judgment was delivered.
Mr C argued that the Irish Examiner’s refusal to disclose material given to its journalists by complainants put his right to a fair trial at risk. He said the alleged incidents dated from 25 to 45 years earlier, the charges lacked specific dates and details, and the absence of available witnesses hampered his defence. He was 82 at the time, according to the judgment.
The application followed steps in the Circuit Court in 2014. The judge there indicated that disclosure should be made by the newspaper and a journalist of complaints received from certain complainants. The newspaper’s editor later said it would not voluntarily disclose material, citing protection of sources. The Circuit Court was advised that it had no jurisdiction to order a non-party newspaper to disclose material in a criminal case, and Mr C was given time to take further steps.
Mr Justice Max Barrett said only two of the 14 complainants, identified as Mr JG and Mr JK, had given accounts to the newspaper. Their accounts were limited and did not include detailed narratives of the alleged abuse. The court said the material appeared unlikely to assist in testing whether complaints had changed over time, a concern raised in earlier case law on historical abuse allegations.
Applying principles governing applications to halt criminal proceedings, the judge said the High Court should be slow to interfere with a prosecution and that the accused must show a real and unavoidable risk of an unfair trial. He found Mr C had not established such a risk. Potential unfairness could be addressed through rulings and directions by the trial judge, he said, and the specific concern about newspaper material was more imagined than real in light of its limited scope.
The judgment noted that section 4L of the Criminal Procedure Act 1967 allows the trial court, on an application by either side, to summon a person to give evidence and produce specified documents or things likely to be material evidence. The judge said questions about journalistic privilege and source protection could be considered by the trial judge if a summons were sought. He also noted that such a summons is not a substitute for disclosure.
The High Court declined all relief sought. It did not determine the criminal charges or order the newspaper or its journalists to produce material.