The High Court has dismissed Richard Hanrahan’s claim for malicious prosecution over a criminal damage prosecution arising from a 2011 protest in County Mayo.
In a judgment delivered on 31 March 2020, Mr Justice Max Barrett said the evidence did not establish that the prosecution had been brought without reasonable and probable cause or that it was motivated by malice. The ruling addressed only the malicious prosecution claim, one of several alleged wrongs in Mr Hanrahan’s action against the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, Ireland and the Attorney General.
The claim arose after a protest at Bellagelly South on 2 August 2011. The judgment says Mr Hanrahan was pushed by Garda Browne. He decided to record the garda’s shoulder epaulette number so he could make a complaint, and reached for the garda’s shoulder as he moved away. An epaulette came off the jacket. Mr Hanrahan was subsequently charged with criminal damage to the jacket.
He was convicted in the District Court, but that conviction was quashed on appeal after it became clear there was no certainty that the jacket produced as evidence was the correct one. The judge said the jacket had not been placed in an evidence bag and its chain of custody had not been comprehensively documented. Garda Browne could not explain how the wrong jacket came to be produced; the judge said the error almost certainly stemmed from the initial failure to bag it.
The defendants’ counsel submitted that the failure to preserve the jacket properly put the prosecution’s outcome in jeopardy. The judge described Garda Browne as honest in his evidence and said he had no personal ill-will towards Mr Hanrahan.
Applying the elements of malicious prosecution, the judge found that the proceedings had been instituted by the defendants and that the quashed conviction satisfied the requirement that they had been unsuccessful. But he said the evidence pointed towards reasonable and probable cause for bringing the prosecution, which was enough to defeat the tort claim. He also found no evidence of malice or an evil motive. The judgment said Mr Hanrahan would have established damage had he proved the other elements.
The court therefore dismissed the malicious prosecution action. It did not determine the other claims mentioned in the judgment.