The Court of Appeal has ruled that a breath-test statement signed by a driver before the Garda who administered the test was not duly completed for the purposes of the statutory evidence provisions. It held that a Supreme Court decision in DPP v Freeman remained binding and answered a Circuit Court judge’s consultative question in the negative.
The case concerned Robert Hodgins, who had appealed his District Court conviction for driving with excess alcohol. At the Court of Appeal stage, the issue was whether the trial judge could consider prejudice or fair-trial rights when deciding whether the statement was admissible, despite the earlier Freeman ruling on the same signature sequence.
The agreed facts before the Circuit Court were that, after a collision in Killestry, Co Clare, a breath test at Ennis Garda Station recorded 55 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The Garda accepted that he had not signed the two statements before giving them to Hodgins. Hodgins signed first, in the space intended for the Garda, and the Garda signed afterwards.
The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the Supreme Court’s later decision in DPP v Avadenei had changed the approach to procedural defects. It relied on that judgment’s discussion of whether an error caused unfairness or prejudice. Hodgins argued that Freeman remained binding and that only a duly completed statement could receive the statutory evidential status.
The Court of Appeal distinguished the cases. Avadenei concerned a statement issued in English without the required Irish-language version. The Supreme Court there found that the omission did not make the statement misleading or unfair and considered the statutory rule allowing certain deviations from prescribed forms. The present case concerned the sequence of signatures, which had been the issue in Freeman.
The Court of Appeal said the relevant discussion in Avadenei about the signature sequence was an observation, not the binding basis of that decision. It found no indication that the Supreme Court had silently overruled Freeman. Because the Supreme Court had upheld the High Court’s reasoned Freeman decision, the Court of Appeal said lower courts remained bound to follow it.
The ruling resolved the legal question referred by the Circuit Court. The Court of Appeal did not itself determine the appeal against Hodgins’s District Court conviction; the case stated had been sought before the Circuit Court judge made a final determination.