The High Court dismissed Danny Wyatt’s judicial review challenge to the decision to try him alongside another defendant on separate indictments before the same jury. Mr Justice Twomey ruled on 27 March 2019 that Wyatt could not rely on the reasons advanced at the hearing because they were outside the grounds on which he had been granted leave to bring the case.
Wyatt had sought to have his assault trial declared a nullity, arguing that the concurrent-trial procedure deprived him of his constitutional right to a trial in due course of law. The assault on Robert Guiry was alleged to have happened at a Clonmel nightclub on 3 August 2015. Nathan Burke was also charged over the same incident.
The judgment recounts that the Circuit Court allowed the prosecution, on 30 November 2017, to proceed with two separate indictments together. Wyatt’s lawyer objected and sought separate trials. At the trial on 6 December 2017, the jury found Wyatt guilty but could not reach a verdict on Burke, who was remanded to the next sessions of the Clonmel Circuit Court.
In the judicial review hearing, Wyatt argued that Burke had influenced the jury’s composition through his challenges to potential jurors; that Burke could not testify for Wyatt while being tried at the same time; and that evidence relating to Burke’s indictment was before the jury, whether or not it was relevant to Wyatt’s case.
The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that these points could not be raised because they were absent from Wyatt’s statement of grounds and the leave order. The High Court agreed. The grounds approved when leave was granted said, in general terms, that the procedure lacked a legal basis, the trial judge acted without jurisdiction, and Wyatt’s trial was a nullity. They did not identify jury composition, witness compellability or evidence relating to Burke’s indictment as the reasons for the challenge.
The judge said the grounds in a judicial review leave order set the parameters for the hearing. Since the three arguments were outside those parameters, and were the only grounds relied on at the hearing, the application was dismissed.
The court also commented on the merits of those arguments for completeness. It said there was no evidence that the jury’s composition had prejudiced Wyatt, that he had identified any prejudice to the trial judge before the trial, that the disputed CCTV-related evidence had actually prejudiced him, or that Burke would have been called as a witness had the trials been separate. These were comments on the arguments, not separate findings that the concurrent-trial procedure was lawful. The court did not quash the trial or grant the requested relief.