The High Court ordered €100,000 and any interest forfeited to the State after finding the money lodged as an independent bail surety had been provided by the respondent, Rory Doyle, also known as David West.
The Attorney General had applied for the money to be forfeited after Doyle failed to appear in the Supreme Court in February 2012 to pursue his appeal against an order for extradition to the United States. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he had not been located by the time of the High Court judgment.
Doyle had been granted bail pending the extradition proceedings and later his appeal. Conditions included living at his mother Maura Doyle’s home in Donnybrook, reporting to Donnybrook Garda Station, surrendering his passport and lodging €100,000 through an independent surety. His mother was approved as surety and the money was lodged by banker’s draft.
In December 2011, the High Court permitted Doyle to travel to England for Christmas, with his passport to be returned and reporting requirements suspended for the period. The judgment records that he did not return his passport on 29 December and did not resume signing on. His last recorded sign-on was 20 December. Garda inquiries began later in January, and his mother said in an affidavit that she had travelled to Cork for Christmas and returned to find him absent.
The judge expressed concern about gaps in her account and, after an adjournment, asked for clear evidence showing where the money came from. No further affidavit was provided. The judge drew an adverse inference and found that the funds had been supplied by Doyle. He concluded that Doyle had used his mother as surety on the false pretence that she was lodging her own money.
The court therefore did not need to decide whether the mother was culpable in Doyle’s disappearance or how its discretion should apply if the money had been hers. The judge also said that a genuine independent surety should be notified of an application to vary bail, since a relaxation could increase the risk of flight. He found that issue did not change the result in this case because the money was Doyle’s.
The judgment also criticised the absence of an effective system to alert Gardaí promptly when a person failed to report under bail conditions, saying the delay in noticing Doyle’s non-compliance weakened the safeguard. The order was for forfeiture of the €100,000 and any interest to the State.