The High Court has dismissed a woman’s judicial review challenge to criminal charges arising from an alleged stabbing, finding that periods of delay in the investigation did not amount to culpable prosecutorial delay overall.
The applicant was 15 when the alleged incident occurred in September 2015. She argued that a faster investigation would have allowed her case to be tried while she was still a child under the Children Act 2001, including with the Act’s reporting restrictions. She also said her mental health difficulties made the stress of awaiting trial unusually severe.
The court found that the Gardaí acted reasonably at first, relying on the applicant’s mother’s representation that she had gone to live in the United Kingdom and on her undertaking to bring her daughter for questioning on her return. The judge found that the applicant’s mother had made that representation, rejecting her later denial on the balance of probabilities.
After the Director of Public Prosecutions said in February 2016 that the applicant needed to be interviewed before a charging decision, Gardaí had to make reasonable efforts to locate her. The judge found blameworthy delay by An Garda Síochána as an organisation between late May and early August 2016, when confidential information indicated that she had returned and was living with her mother. He said management should have assigned another officer to locate her while the investigating detective was on extended leave. He made no criticism of the individual officers involved.
The applicant was charged in April 2017, and her trial was joined with the other accused for 5 December 2017. The judge said that expedited trial date offset the earlier periods of delay: the charges had been brought about six months before her eighteenth birthday, and the scheduled trial was just over two years after the alleged incident. The trial did not proceed on that date after the judicial review was brought; the judgment said the charges were then expected to be heard in 2020, with that further delay largely attributable to the applicant’s proceedings.
The judge said the Children Act’s reporting restrictions apply to a child at the time of criminal proceedings, so the applicant would not have that statutory protection as an adult. He nevertheless concluded, in a balancing exercise conducted in case his delay finding was wrong, that the seriousness of the alleged offences and the public interest in their prosecution outweighed the prejudice from loss of anonymity. He also found that the medical evidence did not show the wholly exceptional circumstances required to prohibit a trial.
The court dismissed the judicial review in its entirety. It also ordered that the case title be amended to show that the applicant was proceeding in her own name. Separately, the judge proposed a temporary reporting restriction to protect her identity while any appeal remained possible. The restriction bars publication of her name, address or current residential area; it allows reference to her being from Coolock, the alleged incident and, in general terms, her mental health difficulties. It lapses 28 days after the High Court order is perfected unless an appeal or application for leave to appeal is filed, and continues if an appeal is filed unless set aside or dismissed.