The Court of Appeal has allowed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ appeal against an acquittal in a taxi robbery case and directed a retrial.
The court ruled that the trial judge was wrong to direct an acquittal before the jury had heard evidence. It said the judge did so after deciding admissibility issues, rather than at the conclusion of the prosecution case, and had denied a party the opportunity to present her case to the jury.
The appeal concerned an acquittal directed at Dublin Circuit Court on 7 February 2018 on a robbery charge and related charges. The judgment states that taxi driver Mr Rogers was robbed on 30 October 2015 at Glenshane Close, Tallaght. The central issue was whether Martin Wilson was the culprit.
Before the prosecution opened its case, the parties addressed three issues: whether garda identification evidence was admissible, whether the seizure of Wilson’s suit while he was detained on another matter was lawful, and whether evidence from an informal identification process at the Criminal Courts of Justice was admissible.
The judgment summarised evidence that the passenger had been picked up near the Black Forge pub on Drimnagh Road and was described as wearing a distinctive shiny grey suit. The prosecution intended to present evidence linking Wilson to a similar suit, bus CCTV footage and a bus ticket the passenger had given the driver instead of paying the fare. The driver retained the ticket and later gave it to gardaí. The judgment also records that the driver expressed considerable doubt when asked to identify Wilson, which the court inferred was primarily due to the passage of time.
The Court of Appeal said the prosecution case was therefore based on circumstantial evidence, which it considered could be strong. It held there was ample evidence on which a jury could be satisfied of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Under section 23 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2010, as amended, the appeal could succeed where the acquittal direction was wrong in law and the evidence might reasonably support such a finding by a jury.
The court allowed the appeal and ordered a retrial. It did not determine Wilson’s guilt; the case is to be tried again.