The High Court prohibited the prosecution of John O’Brien for allegedly attempting to frustrate a drunk-driving prosecution, finding that the destruction of a Garda car had deprived him of a chance to obtain potentially relevant evidence. The court did not determine whether O’Brien fell from the car accidentally or deliberately jumped from it.
O’Brien was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated on 4 December 2012. He says he was not wearing a seat belt and fell out when the rear door opened as the patrol car rounded a sharp bend. The two gardaí in the car say he was belted, opened the door himself and jumped out. He was later charged with drunk driving and with taking an action intended to frustrate a prosecution.
Within days, O’Brien’s solicitor asked that the car be preserved and made available for an engineer to inspect. A Garda public service vehicle inspector examined it the day after the incident and recorded that the locks and seat belts worked. O’Brien’s engineer later said a proper examination would require closer inspection of the door mechanism, internal panels, frame and seat belts.
The car remained in daily use and was crushed in May 2013 after reaching what Garda Inspector Healy described as the end of its life. The State Claims Agency learned of the destruction months later while trying to arrange a joint inspection. By then, summonses had been issued, but they had not yet been served on O’Brien.
The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the disputed events should be resolved at trial and that O’Brien had not shown a real risk of an unfair trial that could not be remedied by the trial judge. The respondent also argued that the possibility of a defect was speculative and that the inspection had been delayed by difficulties arranging a date.
Justice Iseult O’Malley said the inspection request had been made promptly and had been pursued in correspondence. The gardaí knew within days that O’Brien said the door had opened unexpectedly and that he wanted the car examined. By the time the summons was sought, the door’s condition was likely to matter to the allegation that he had deliberately jumped.
The judge found that allowing the car to be destroyed without notifying O’Brien breached the duty to preserve evidence with a potential bearing on guilt or innocence. She said the loss of the opportunity to obtain objective expert evidence left O’Brien facing the gardaí’s account with little more than his own assertion. The trial judge’s power to exclude evidence of the initial vehicle inspection would not remedy that loss.
The court held that O’Brien met the exceptional threshold for relief and granted the relief claimed in relation to the charge of attempting to frustrate the prosecution. The judgment did not decide the underlying disputed account of the incident.