The High Court has dismissed M.P.’s application to stop the Director of Public Prosecutions from prosecuting him on two indictments, finding that the judicial review application was brought outside the time limit. The court also dismissed his request to extend the time for bringing the proceedings.
M.P. faces 70 counts of alleged indecent assault and child cruelty involving three of his sons. The allegations concern events said to have occurred between 1973 and 1986. M.P. denies the allegations and disputes the complainants’ account of the family home.
The DPP intends to prosecute the two indictments in one trial before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. M.P. sought an order restraining those prosecutions, relying on alleged prejudice to his ability to receive a fair trial, including the unavailability of potential defence witnesses.
The court decided the application on the procedural time limit in Order 84, rule 21 of the Rules of the Superior Courts. It held that the rule’s time limits were mandatory. For the indictment concerning the first two complainants, the court found M.P. had enough information to bring the application by 12 July 2012, when he received the first book of evidence. It therefore dismissed his application to stop that prosecution.
For the third complainant’s allegations, the court said the deadline had passed no later than 18 October 2013, when the second book of evidence was served. The application was made on 3 February 2014, about two weeks late. Although the court noted it might extend time in some cases involving a short delay and serious alleged offences, it declined to do so here. It cited the time elapsed since M.P. was charged over the first two complainants’ allegations, the overlap between the allegations and locations, and the fact that the same witnesses were said to be unavailable. The application was made after a trial date had been set.
The court did not decide the substantive arguments about complainant delay, prosecutorial delay or prejudice because the time-limit issue disposed of the application. It said, however, that if those issues had needed decision, it would have allowed the prosecutions to proceed, having regard to the trial judge’s role in protecting M.P.’s fair-trial rights.
The court dismissed the application to restrain prosecution on both indictments, identified in the decision as 748/2012 and 885/2013, and dismissed the application for an extension of time.