The High Court has refused to stop the prosecution of Jason O’Driscoll over an alleged ram-raid at the Extra Vision store on Greenhills Road in Tallaght, despite criticism of the decision to return the car allegedly used in the incident only two days later.
O’Driscoll was charged with burglary and criminal damage arising from an incident on March 16, 2003. The prosecution alleged that a dark green Opel Vectra was reversed into the shop shutters and that two men fled through the premises before being found hiding nearby.
Garda Vivienne Saunders said she recognised O’Driscoll as one of two youths she had seen behind the shop counter moments earlier. The prosecution also intended to rely on forensic evidence which, it said, supported an allegation that O’Driscoll had been in contact with the driver’s seat of the Vectra.
The car had been forensically examined before being returned to its owner on March 18, 2003. O’Driscoll argued that this deprived the defence of the opportunity to carry out its own inspection and testing, placing the prosecution in a more favourable position.
Ms Justice Dunne accepted that Gardaí had returned the vehicle too quickly, particularly as a suspect had already been identified and there appeared to be no urgency requiring its release.
However, that error did not automatically make a fair trial impossible. The judge found that the fibres and other material relied upon by the prosecution remained available for independent examination, while the prosecution’s laboratory findings could be challenged by a defence expert.
The court said O’Driscoll had not demonstrated what further inspection of the car would realistically have established or how its absence prevented him from answering the prosecution case. A merely theoretical possibility that useful evidence might once have existed was insufficient.
The application to restrain the criminal proceedings was therefore refused. The court did not determine O’Driscoll’s guilt or the ultimate admissibility or weight of the prosecution evidence.