The Supreme Court has ruled that an arrest in Arklow under section 50 of the Road Traffic Act was lawful, although the arresting Garda’s view of the applicable offence was later found to be mistaken.
The court allowed an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and answered in the affirmative a question referred from the District Court: whether the arrest was lawful on the facts found and the Garda’s observations before the arrest. The ruling concerned the arrest’s legality; it did not determine the respondent’s guilt on the underlying complaint.
The case arose from events at 11.41pm on 30 September 2005. Garda Marion Galvin told the District Court she saw a car stopped in the middle of Arklow’s Main Street, engine running. She said it indicated left and then right, and its brake lights went out as it appeared about to move. The car was obstructing traffic heading towards the bridge. Galvin said she smelled alcohol on the driver’s breath and noticed slurred speech. She did not see the car move. She arrested the respondent under section 50(10) and told him she was arresting him for “drink driving”.
The District Court found that the respondent had attempted to drive and that Galvin’s opinion was bona fide but mistaken. It referred a legal question to the High Court, which answered that the arrest was unlawful. The High Court reasoned that Galvin’s opinion that a section 50 offence had occurred was irrational because the facts indicated an attempt to drive, which fell under section 49. It also considered the arrest and subsequent detention unlawful and said a blood sample taken at Arklow Garda Station was inadmissible.
The DPP argued that a genuinely held but inaccurate opinion should not make the arrest invalid. The respondent argued that the opinion had to be reasonable and that the arrest was unlawful on the evidence.
The Supreme Court held that the High Court had erred by applying public-law rationality analysis to the statutory arrest. It said the statutory power required a bona fide opinion, and found Galvin’s opinion reasonable in this case. The court said a later finding that she had mistaken which of the closely related sections applied did not invalidate the arrest. It also said the statutory scheme permits a person charged under one section to be prosecuted or convicted under the other.
The Supreme Court allowed the DPP’s appeal and answered the case-stated question in the affirmative. It did not decide whether the respondent committed an offence. The judgment states that it was unnecessary to decide whether reasonableness is always a requirement for a valid arrest under section 50(10).