The High Court refused habeas corpus relief to Darren O’Halloran, ruling that his complaints about his treatment in Limerick Prison should be pursued through judicial review.
In a judgment delivered on 10 May 2017, Mr Justice Eagar said Article 40 was not the appropriate remedy. The court had directed an inquiry into O’Halloran’s detention. He declined an offer of legal representation and presented his case himself.
O’Halloran told the court that prison staff had scanned him and placed him on a “boss chair”. He said he was wrongly subjected to Rule 62 and placed alone in a cell. He also said he falsely claimed to have swallowed a razor blade so he would be taken to hospital for an X-ray, which he said would prove he had nothing on him. He said he was later returned to a padded cell.
The Governor of Limerick Prison disputed O’Halloran’s account that he had been placed on Rule 62 for three weeks. In an affidavit, Governor Mark Kennedy said the restrictions followed positive readings from a device used to detect electronic devices concealed on or about a person. He said the readings gave him reasonable grounds to believe O’Halloran had a prohibited article and posed a significant threat to prison order or security.
Kennedy’s affidavit also said O’Halloran claimed on 14 April 2017 to have swallowed razor blades and was taken to hospital for an X-ray, which detected no metal object. Kennedy said the hospital had not established that O’Halloran had no electronic device or circuitry on him, and noted that some “beat the boss” phones contain little or no metal.
The respondent argued that O’Halloran’s detention certificate was valid on its face and that his complaints could be addressed through judicial review. The court accepted that judicial review was the more appropriate means of raising them, followed the Supreme Court’s statement of law in *Leroy Roche aka Dumbrell v Governor of Cloverhill Prison*, and refused habeas corpus relief. The judgment did not determine the underlying complaints through a judicial review proceeding.