The Supreme Court dismissed Ciaran Savage’s appeal seeking to prohibit his trial for road-traffic offences arising from a fatal crash, finding he had not shown that the loss of the car created a real risk that he would not receive a fair trial.
In a judgment delivered on 3 July 2008, Mr Justice Fennelly said Gardaí breached their duty to preserve potential evidence when they destroyed the car on 25 July 2001, without notice to Savage. He said they should have considered Savage’s possible interests before disposing of it. The car had been destroyed less than four weeks after a notice of intention to prosecute was served.
The prosecution had later said it would proceed without evidence from witnesses about the car’s condition, and that its condition would no longer be an issue. The case against Savage was instead that he drove dangerously, including at speed. The judgment said the book of evidence included accounts from two Gardaí and five civilian witnesses describing the car travelling at high speed and apparently going out of control before the crash. Savage had not suggested in his application that he contested any of that evidence, though the court said he remained entitled to challenge it at trial.
Savage relied on reports and affidavits from engineering expert Dr Mark Jordan. Jordan raised the possibility that steering damage or a sudden tyre deflation could have contributed to the crash. He said examining the car would have helped him assess those possibilities. The court considered that the material raised uncertainty but did not establish that Jordan was significantly handicapped by the lack of direct examination. It also noted that Jordan’s report did not address the eyewitness accounts.
Fennelly said the fair-trial application had to be assessed in the context of all the evidence likely to be heard at trial. He concluded that the possible explanations raised by Jordan could be put to the trial court and that Savage had not established a sufficient basis to stop the prosecution.
The appeal was dismissed. The ruling concerned whether the trial should be prohibited because the car had been destroyed; it did not determine Savage’s guilt or the road-traffic charges.