The High Court ruled that a DNA profile generated from a crime-scene sample before the Criminal Justice (Forensic Evidence and DNA Database System) Act 2014 came into force could not lawfully be retained on an “intermediate database” or later included in the statutory DNA database in the circumstances of this case. It left the separate question of whether the DNA match could be admitted in evidence to the trial judge.
The ruling was made by Mr Justice Meenan on 3 March 2020 in a case stated by a District Court judge. John Maher faced a burglary charge relating to an alleged break-in at Keeper Road, Drimnagh, Dublin 12, on 12 November 2010. The High Court did not decide the charge or determine the admissibility of the DNA evidence at trial.
The District Court had established that a blood sample was collected from a bedroom at the house on 13 November 2010. The judgment records that Gardaí took no measures to preserve the scene between the burglary and the examination, and that no evidence was given about who had access to the house during that period.
The sample was stored at Crumlin Garda Station until it was sent to Forensic Science Ireland (FSI) in April 2013. FSI generated a DNA profile around 16 May 2013 and placed it on what the prosecution described as an “intermediate database”, created ahead of the 2014 legislation. A later FSI report said the crime-scene profile matched a bodily sample attributed to Maher, although the prosecution could not establish when or in what circumstances that sample had been taken. A separate evidential DNA sample taken from Maher after his arrest in September 2016 was also found to match the crime-scene sample. The defence did not challenge how that later sample was taken.
At the close of the prosecution case, the defence sought dismissal, arguing that the DNA evidence was inadmissible and that there was no legal authority for the intermediate database. The District Court judge referred four questions to the High Court.
Mr Justice Meenan concluded there was no legal authority for establishing the intermediate database. He also ruled that the 2014 Act’s crime-scene index provisions concerned profiles generated after the relevant section commenced, even where the biological material had been collected before then. The profile in this case had been generated in 2013. The judge noted that generating a profile from the 2010 sample after the legislation commenced would not have raised the same issue.
The High Court answered “no” to whether the profile had lawfully been generated, retained or entered on a database before the Act, and to whether this profile could lawfully be included in the statutory database after the Act. It left the admissibility of the match, and whether the District Court judge could admit the evidence, for the trial judge to determine.