The Supreme Court has dismissed appeals by two anonymised applicants who sought to stop their pending criminal trials over alleged sexual offences dating from the 1970s.
In a judgment delivered on 7 November 2006, Denham J. said K.R. and P.R. had not shown that delay created a real or serious risk that they could not receive a fair trial. The court dismissed both appeals and confirmed the High Court’s order refusing to prohibit or injunct the prosecutions. It did not decide the criminal charges themselves.
K.R. faces two rape counts and one indecent-assault count relating to alleged offences in 1971, 1972 and 1979. P.R. faces 28 indecent-assault counts relating to alleged incidents between 1 January 1970 and 30 September 1976. The complainant first contacted gardaí in 1997. Both applicants were arrested and charged in September 1999.
The High Court had refused their applications in January 2004. The Supreme Court considered the appeals after its review of the law in H. v. D.P.P. It said the question was whether the delay had caused prejudice serious enough to create a real or serious risk of an unfair trial. The reasons for the complainant’s delay in making a complaint were no longer an issue under that approach. The court also said the Oireachtas had not set a limitation period for these offences, and each case had to be assessed on its facts.
The applicants relied in part on the deaths of potential witnesses, including parents and another witness identified as P.K. Counsel argued that their evidence might have helped assess the complainant’s account or events around the alleged incidents. The court upheld the High Court’s assessment that the claimed significance of some missing evidence was speculative and that the witnesses’ absence did not make a fair trial impossible. It also noted that the alleged offences were said to have taken place in private, and that a trial resting largely on one person’s word against another is not barred on that ground alone.
The court found no blameworthy prosecutorial delay. It said the evidence described an investigation between the 1997 complaints and the September 1999 arrests, and that the time taken was explained. It also rejected K.R.’s claim of process delay, noting that judicial-review proceedings had stopped the criminal process after the case was returned for trial.
The ruling addresses only whether the prosecutions should be halted before trial. The Supreme Court dismissed both appeals; the charges remained pending.