The High Court dismissed eight proceedings over alleged sexual assaults during psychiatric treatment at Belmont Hospital, County Waterford, ruling that prolonged delay after the claims were filed had prejudiced the defendants and made a fair trial impossible.
In a judgment delivered on 6 October 2009, Mr Justice Hedigan granted the defendants’ preliminary application to dismiss the cases for want of prosecution, inordinate and inexcusable delay, and prejudice affecting the defendants’ rights to natural and constitutional justice. No order for costs was sought.
The plaintiffs alleged that a consultant psychiatrist assaulted them during treatment between 1976 and 1991. The doctor died in 2004; his insolvent estate was represented in the proceedings. The plaintiffs also sued the Brothers of Charity, alleging that it employed him and failed to provide adequate staffing, care or supervision, and that its agents knew or ought to have known of the alleged conduct. The judgment records allegations and does not determine whether the assaults occurred or whether the second defendant was responsible.
The claims were filed between 1998 and 2000. The defendants argued that delays before filing ranged from six years and three months to 17 years and nine months, and that the further delay in progressing the cases had weakened their ability to defend them. The plaintiffs accepted that the post-filing delays were lengthy but said trauma, difficulty revisiting the alleged events and, for some, illness had impeded their ability to instruct solicitors. They argued the claims should be heard at trial.
Justice Hedigan treated the delay before filing separately from the delay after filing. He found that, when the claims were initiated, it would not have been unfair to require the defendants to defend them: the doctor was then alive, and the plaintiffs’ asserted difficulty in bringing claims was relevant to the balance of justice.
The court reached a different conclusion about the later delay. It found that little or no progress had been made, with no positive step in most cases for more than 11 years. Replies to requests for particulars remained outstanding in seven cases, and one plaintiff had not served a statement of claim on the second defendant. The judge accepted that the plaintiffs were vulnerable and had difficulty revisiting the alleged abuse, but found little evidence to explain the failure to progress the cases or to suggest that this would change.
The court concluded that the delay had prejudiced the defendants’ ability to locate evidence, that memories had faded and that the deceased doctor’s absence particularly affected the second defendant’s ability to answer allegations about his conduct. It dismissed all eight proceedings on the three grounds advanced in the motion. The judgment makes no finding on the truth of the allegations.