The High Court has refused to prohibit the trial of a man charged over a 2017 assault and robbery, despite finding two periods of culpable prosecutorial delay while he was a minor.
In a judgment delivered on 7 February 2022, Ms Justice Niamh Hyland ruled that the public interest in trying the serious charges outweighed the disadvantage the applicant faced from losing the protections of the Children Act 2001. The decision concerns whether the prosecution can proceed; it does not determine the criminal charges.
The applicant was born on 15 June 2002 and was 15 at the time of the alleged offences on 5 November 2017. He is charged with robbery, assault causing harm and violent disorder. The judgment says two teenagers were lured to Gormanstown, Co Meath, and attacked by a large group. One, identified as AC, suffered a broken nose and fractured ribs, among other injuries. The applicant is charged with assaulting and robbing AC.
The judgment records that, in a Garda interview, the applicant admitted going to Gormanstown with a group, punching both teenagers and hitting AC while he was on the ground. It also records admissions that he knew the victims had been lured there and saw AC being stripped. These are matters recorded in the judicial review judgment, not findings after a criminal trial.
Justice Hyland found no delay from the incident until 30 September 2018, when the applicant was deemed unsuitable for the juvenile diversion programme. She found culpable delay from then until June 2019 because no concrete investigative steps during that period were evidenced. She also found culpable delay from October to December 2019, when work on the file stopped while the investigating officer was assigned to other duties, with no explanation for why another person could not take over.
The applicant argued that timely prosecution would likely have allowed his case to be dealt with under the Children Act, including a District Court decision on trial jurisdiction and statutory protections concerning sentencing and a probation report. The judge accepted that he had lost the opportunity to ask the District Court to try the charges summarily. She considered that disadvantage real but not decisive. She said some protections, including consideration of his age and the possibility of a probation report, could still be available at the Circuit Court judge’s discretion.
The judgment weighed that disadvantage against the seriousness of the charges, the injuries described and the public interest in the case going to trial. It refused the relief sought. The question of costs was left for oral submissions at a later date; the judgment made no costs order.