The High Court has refused an anonymised applicant’s bid to prohibit two pending criminal prosecutions involving 270 charges of historical sexual offences against six complainants.
In a judgment delivered on 26 January 2021, Ms Justice Miriam O’Regan ruled that the applicant had not established a real or serious risk that the trials would be unfair, or that any such risk could not be avoided through appropriate rulings and directions by the trial judge. The court refused the relief sought in both judicial review cases. It did not decide the applicant’s guilt or innocence on the criminal charges.
The 2018 bill concerns 99 charges involving three complainants, alleged to have occurred between 1983 and 1993. The 2019 bill concerns 171 charges involving three complainants, alleged to have occurred between 1978 and 1988. The judgment says the cases together cover the period from December 1978 to March 1993.
The applicant argued that delay, faded memory, unavailable witnesses and lost evidence had impaired the ability to defend the charges. He also cited prior prosecution and guilty pleas, publicity, possible contamination between complainants, and the possibility of further prosecutions. These were grounds advanced by the applicant, not findings that the court accepted.
The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed the applications, arguing that the claimed prejudice was either speculative or could be addressed at trial. The respondent also said the evidence would extend beyond bare allegations and denial, and that the trial judge could consider the effects of delay, publicity and missing evidence.
Justice O’Regan said the case was not one in which the evidence would be limited to bare accusation and bare denial. She found no evidence that Gardaí knew of these complainants during the 1987 involvement raised by the applicant, and said the alleged prejudice from unavailable witnesses was general rather than specific. The court also rejected the claim that Gardaí had acted inappropriately over one complainant’s attempt to report an alleged assault as a child.
The judge concluded that the applicant had not shown wholly exceptional circumstances warranting prohibition, even assuming there had been prosecutorial delay. The judgment leaves the criminal prosecutions to proceed, subject to the trial court’s role in managing fairness issues.