The High Court refused to disturb a man’s drunken-driving conviction, ruling that he had not shown a case-specific reason to inspect the breath-testing machine used in his prosecution or documents about its servicing and calibration.
The applicant had been convicted in the District Court on 27 May 2009 of drunken driving on a Roscommon road in July 2008. The breath analysis produced a reading of 88 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath, more than twice the legal limit, the judgment said. At a preliminary application on 4 December 2008, the District Court judge granted disclosure of garda statements but refused inspection of the Lion Intoxilyser machine at Roscommon Garda station and related servicing and calibration documents.
In the judicial review, the applicant argued that the refusal made his conviction invalid because it prevented a forensic scientist he had appointed from examining the machine. High Court judge Mr Justice Charleton said there was no evidence at the criminal trial suggesting that the machine was incorrectly calibrated or improperly used. The applicant did not give evidence, and no questions were put to prosecution witnesses to suggest a reason to doubt the device’s operation. The roadside breath-test result and the arresting garda’s evidence of a strong smell of alcohol were also unchallenged.
The judge accepted that people accused of drunken driving may seek inspection of a breath-testing machine, given the statutory presumption that its reading is correct. But he said disclosure and inspection rights are not automatic: the request must be relevant to a potential defence, and its basis must be established. A request made only to see whether records might reveal a defence would be an exploratory exercise, he said.
Charleton said the applicant had not identified any circumstance that could cast doubt on the reading or shown how the requested access related to a defence. He found no breach of fair procedures and concluded that the District Court judge had dealt with the application correctly.
The High Court’s decision left the conviction undisturbed. It did not order inspection or disclosure, and it did not make a new finding about the machine’s calibration or operation.