The High Court has refused an application to halt a prosecution alleging that Joseph Cash entered a home in Ballypreacus, Co Wexford, as a trespasser and committed theft.
The judicial review challenged the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision to prosecute Mr Cash on a Circuit Court indictment. The charge relates to an alleged incident on 17 July 2014 at a dwelling house identified in the judgment as the home of Martin Carroll. The court made no finding on the criminal charge itself.
Mr Cash argued that he was 17 at the time of the alleged offence and that State delay deprived him of the opportunity to be tried and, if convicted, sentenced as a child. His grounds also alleged breaches of the constitutional rights to a trial with reasonable expedition and equality.
The DPP opposed the application, submitting that the investigation and prosecution had proceeded with due expedition. The DPP attributed delays to difficulties locating Mr Cash and his failures to attend court, and argued that the public interest favoured allowing the prosecution to proceed.
The judgment records that Mr Cash gave his date of birth as 8 July 1997. The court accepted evidence from investigating gardaí that he failed to attend court on several occasions, ran away from court on 1 December 2015 before the charge could be put to him, and was charged on 7 January 2016. Mr Cash did not swear an affidavit in the judicial review proceedings, and the court said he had not personally contradicted the gardaí’s evidence.
The judge attributed no prosecutorial delay to the DPP between 17 July 2014 and 2 February 2015, saying any delay in that period was the applicant’s responsibility. The court found prosecutorial delay from 2 February 2015 until the charge on 7 January 2016. It treated delay after Mr Cash turned 18 on 8 July 2015 as irrelevant to this challenge and did not consider the delay to be significant culpable prosecutorial delay. The judge also said that even without undue prosecutorial delay, an indictable jury trial would not have concluded before his 18th birthday.
The court concluded that the public interest and balance of justice did not warrant prohibiting the trial. It refused the requested relief; the judgment does not determine the underlying theft allegation.