The Supreme Court dismissed Noel Noonan’s appeal against a Court of Appeal ruling that Gardaí were entitled to open the boot of a car detained under road traffic legislation.
Chief Justice O’Donnell said the Gardaí had lawful possession of the vehicle under section 41 of the Road Traffic Act 1994, which permitted them to open the boot. He concluded that, in the circumstances of this case, opening it involved no illegality.
The appeal concerned a car stopped on the M7 near Kildare on 13 February 2017. Garda Dave Farragher stopped it because it was not taxed. Noonan, who was driving a car owned by his partner, was uninsured to drive it and could not produce a driving licence. The vehicle was detained, removed by tow truck and taken to a compound. At the compound, Farragher opened the boot and found a package later established to contain drugs, chiefly amphetamines, with an estimated market value of about €137,800.
Noonan had been convicted, among other offences, of possessing drugs for unlawful sale or supply under section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. After a ten-day trial, he was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment, with the final six months suspended. The Court of Appeal allowed a separate ground of appeal concerning the admission of a conversation between Farragher and an inspector and directed a retrial. That issue was not before the Supreme Court in this appeal.
The Chief Justice said the issue was limited to whether Farragher could open the boot while the vehicle was detained. The prosecution did not rely in the Supreme Court on the statutory vehicle-search power in section 23 of the 1977 Act, and the Chief Justice accepted, for the purposes of the argument, the assumption that Noonan’s possession of the car had ended when Gardaí detained and removed it.
He reasoned that the detention placed the Gardaí in lawful possession and control of the car, with power to look inside, including opening the boot, and to retain items they considered evidence of a crime. He said it was therefore unnecessary to define the limits of any common-law search power. He expressed unease with a broad “doctrine of self-protection” rationale but did not determine the wider limits of common-law powers.
The Chief Justice also cautioned that even if a search were unlawful, that would not automatically mean evidence obtained must be excluded; further questions, including whether constitutional rights were breached, could arise. On the issue before him, however, he concluded the boot was lawfully opened and dismissed the appeal.