The High Court has allowed a child’s judicial review application and barred the prosecution from proceeding on an arson charge, finding that blameworthy delay combined with the child’s particular vulnerability made a trial unfair or unjust.
In a judgment delivered on 21 February 2008, Ms Justice Dunne said the State had failed in its special duty to ensure a speedy trial for a child. The prosecution concerned an allegation that A C, then 13, set fire to her family home on 5 December 2005, causing about €15,000 in damage. The judgment records that she admitted causing the fire during a Garda interview that day.
The case was brought by A C, a minor, through her guardian ad litem and next friend. Her application sought an order restraining the Director of Public Prosecutions from taking further steps in the criminal proceedings, which were before the Dublin Metropolitan Children’s Court.
The court noted that the summons was not served and had lapsed by the time the matter was first mentioned in court. The case was listed at the instigation of A C’s solicitor, after efforts to locate and serve the summons. Justice Dunne said there was no basis to complain about the period when the file was considered for the Juvenile Diversion Scheme, but said the delay between the summons being issued in June 2006 and the February 2007 court appearance was difficult to understand. She found that the delay was blameworthy prosecutorial delay.
A C’s counsel accepted that no actual prejudice to the fairness of the trial was alleged. The court applied the test of whether delay caused prejudice giving rise to a real or serious risk of an unfair trial, while recognising that wholly exceptional circumstances could make it unfair or unjust to put an accused on trial.
The judgment considered evidence set out in the solicitor’s affidavit and correspondence to the DPP about A C’s vulnerability and distress, including self-harm. Justice Dunne said the delay did not cause A C’s difficulties, but in her vulnerable state it could only have exacerbated them. She concluded that the case fell within the wholly exceptional circumstances warranting relief and allowed the application. The judgment does not record a separate order quashing the charge; it allowed the application to restrain further prosecution steps.