The Court of Appeal has barred a second prosecution of George Ross over a tractor accident in which 14-year-old Michael Murphy died. It allowed Ross’s appeal from a High Court decision that had refused to prohibit the trial under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
Murphy died on 23 August 2013 after falling through the passenger door of a tractor driven by an employee of Ross. Ross owned the tractor but was not driving it. In October 2014, Mallow District Court convicted him under the Road Traffic Act 1961. The charge concerned allowing the tractor to be driven with a defect that endangered the public: a defective lock or latch on the cab’s left-hand door.
In 2017, Ross was notified of a proposed prosecution under workplace safety legislation. The allegation was that, as an employer, he failed to manage his undertaking so as to protect people at work from safety risks, and that the defective door lock contributed to Murphy’s fatal injuries. The Court of Appeal did not decide whether Ross committed that offence. It considered whether the second trial should be allowed to proceed.
The court held that the two prosecutions were based on the same facts for the purpose of the general rule against sequential trials. The central alleged defect was the same, even though the offences had different legal elements and required different proof. The court said the charges could have been joined in one indictment.
The Director of Public Prosecutions relied on further examination of the tractor and expert evidence obtained during the Health and Safety Authority’s investigation. But the Court of Appeal found that the prosecution had not explained why the HSA could not conduct its forensic examination while the tractor was in Garda possession, or why the investigations had been allowed to proceed sequentially. It also noted that the HSA investigation began within days of the accident, while the later prosecution followed a further delay attributed to a lack of resources in the HSA’s Legal Unit.
The court concluded that the reasons advanced did not amount to special circumstances justifying the second prosecution. It also found that allowing it to proceed in those circumstances would be an abuse of process. The judgment stressed the importance of investigating fatal incidents fully, while also recognising the accused’s right to a trial in due course of law.
The appeal was allowed. The judgment records that all three Court of Appeal judges agreed. It does not make a finding on the workplace safety allegation; it prevents that prosecution from proceeding.