The Supreme Court has allowed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ appeal and dismissed an application to prohibit a criminal prosecution arising from alleged offences between April 1982 and April 1983.
The accused, identified as P.D., faces 14 charges: six of buggery and eight of indecent assault. He denies the charges. The complainant, identified as K.C., was named in each charge. The judgment says all but one alleged offence took place at a Dublin suburban address where P.D. lived at the time. The remaining allegation concerned public toilets.
The High Court had prohibited the continued prosecution after finding that the accused had established, on the balance of probabilities, that proceeding could expose him to a real and serious risk of an unfair trial. The DPP appealed. In the Supreme Court, the issues were prosecutorial delay and whether the passage of time had created a real risk that a fair trial could not be held.
The Supreme Court did not find blameworthy prosecutorial delay. It accepted that the period from November 1996 to November 1997 was insufficiently explained, but said at least some of it had to be allowed for examining a large volume of material supplied by K.C. The court also noted the complexity of the investigation and K.C.’s fragile state and reluctance to make a complaint. It concluded that the accused had not proved culpable delay, so the legal balancing test for that issue did not arise.
The court separately considered the claimed risk of unfairness. It found that the accused had not shown how the absence of potentially relevant witnesses, missing records, loss of business records, or changes to the locations would materially impair his defence. The judgment said the accused had not engaged specifically with the evidence available to show that the risk was real and unavoidable. It also noted that fairness could be protected through rulings and directions by the trial judge.
The Supreme Court concluded that the missing psychologists’ evidence did not justify stopping the trial. It allowed the DPP’s appeal and dismissed the application to prohibit the prosecution. The judgment did not determine guilt or innocence.