The High Court has dismissed Michael Waters’s judicial review challenge to his criminal conviction, finding that it amounted to an abuse of process and was brought out of time.
Justice Garrett Simons said the main relief sought was to quash Waters’s 2013 Circuit Court conviction for assault causing harm. That conviction had been upheld by the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court had refused leave to appeal. The criminal proceedings were therefore concluded, and the High Court could not use judicial review to overrule the Court of Appeal.
The conviction followed an incident at a crèche on 4 January 2012. The court’s account, drawn from the Court of Appeal judgment, said Waters was not allowed to collect his child and an altercation followed. The crèche manager suffered injuries to her nose. At trial, she testified that Waters had headbutted her. A jury convicted him after a three-day trial in June and July 2013. The Circuit Court imposed a three-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.
The judicial review focused on material that the Director of Public Prosecutions acknowledged should have been disclosed before trial, including witness statements and handwritten notes concerning a separate incident at the crèche. The Court of Appeal had considered the non-disclosure complaint and rejected the argument that the material showed a dramatic inconsistency or would realistically have changed the trial’s outcome. It upheld the conviction. The Supreme Court later refused leave to appeal, concluding that the undisclosed documents could not have affected the jury’s verdict.
Waters sought to revisit those issues in the High Court and also challenged decisions by public authorities rejecting his complaints. Justice Simons held that the High Court had no role in deciding whether there had been a miscarriage of justice in these circumstances. He said the statutory route for alleging a miscarriage of justice was an application to the Court of Appeal under the Criminal Procedure Act 1993.
The judge separately found the judicial review late. The application for leave was made on 28 September 2020, nearly seven years after the Circuit Court conviction of 11 October 2013. Even if time were counted from the Supreme Court’s refusal of leave in July 2018, the case was still more than two years late. The judge declined to allow a late application to extend time, noting that no supporting affidavit had been filed and no good reason for the delay had been established.
The court also refused Waters’s proposed amendment to refer to a Garda letter dated 8 July 2020, finding that it confirmed an earlier decision rather than constituting a fresh decision. The proceedings were dismissed. The parties were directed to file written submissions on costs by 1 October 2021; the judgment did not determine costs.