The High Court struck out Donall Murray’s consolidated claim against Garda Sandra Fitzgerald, Ireland and the Attorney General, ruling that the proceedings had been conducted in a vexatious manner and that the defendants were entitled to relief under the court’s inherent jurisdiction.
Mr Justice Michael White delivered judgment on 18 January 2012. The court said it could not conclude that the claims had no chance of success. Its decision concerned the conduct and history of the proceedings, including two jury trials that were halted after prejudicial material was put before juries.
The consolidated case brought together ten proceedings issued between November 2000 and January 2005. Murray alleged, among other things, malicious prosecution arising from road traffic cases and a conspiracy by Gardaí in Dún Laoghaire. Those were allegations, not findings in this judgment. A separate, non-jury part of the claim had been dismissed by Mr Justice Ryan in July 2010.
The first jury was discharged in February 2010 after the trial judge found serious errors in the plaintiff’s counsel’s opening that could not be remedied while ensuring a fair trial. At a second jury trial in February 2011, the judge withdrew the case after finding that the opening again contained prejudicial matters, despite prior guidance.
White said the second opening was a serious abuse of the court process. He also considered the wider history, including four costs orders against the plaintiff, which he said he was satisfied Murray could not pay, and a file circulated by Murray containing allegations of rape and judicial bias. The judgment described the file as “scandalous”.
The court recorded a mixture of outcomes in the underlying road traffic prosecutions: convictions upheld on appeal, charges taken into consideration, matters dealt with under the Probation of Offenders Act, and dismissals. It noted disputes in the evidence about some incidents. Those earlier outcomes were part of the background to the civil claim; they did not determine the malicious prosecution and conspiracy allegations in this ruling.
The defendants had asked the court to dismiss the claim as frivolous and vexatious, as an abuse of process, or to stay it until costs were paid. White instead ordered the proceedings struck out under the court’s inherent jurisdiction. The judgment did not find that the claims were bound to fail, and it did not award the defendants the requested stay pending payment of costs.