The High Court has struck out a prisoner’s judicial review proceedings after face-to-face visits with her son resumed at neutral venues, while ordering the respondents to pay part of her legal costs.
Mr Justice Barr ruled that Charlotte Mulhall should receive 50% of her costs for the contested application for leave to bring the case and 66% of her costs for the substantive hearing. The costs are to be assessed by the Legal Costs Adjudicator if the parties cannot agree. The order is stayed for 28 days; if either side lodges an appeal within that period, the stay continues until the Court of Appeal determines the matter.
The case concerned the Limerick Prison governor’s 2019 decision to stop temporarily transferring Ms Mulhall to the Dóchas Centre in Dublin for visits with her son. She had been moved from the Dóchas Centre to Limerick Prison in December 2018. After two temporary transfers in May and July 2019, the governor decided to end the practice, saying the visits appeared to destabilise her on her return. The governor said visits could instead take place in Limerick, but the child’s foster parents and the Child and Family Agency considered travel there too upsetting for the boy. The result was that face-to-face visits stopped in late 2019.
Ms Mulhall’s judicial review also challenged her transfer to Limerick. In an earlier decision, the court refused leave to pursue that challenge because it was brought outside the time allowed by court rules. It permitted the case to proceed over the visiting arrangements. She also sought damages for an alleged breach of her European Convention on Human Rights rights.
At the substantive hearing, counsel for Ms Mulhall did not pursue an injunction after the court was told that visits had taken place at neutral venues in October and November 2021 and March 2022. The respondents’ counsel said another visit was scheduled for April 2022 and that, as matters stood, there was no reason to believe further visits would not take place. She could not guarantee that the arrangement would continue: decisions remained with the governor and would depend on operational and security considerations at the time. Ms Mulhall withdrew her damages claim and did not challenge the suspension of in-person prison visits during the COVID-19 restrictions.
The judge found that the proceedings had secured a practical change from the position at the end of 2019 and that the governor’s assurance in court was valuable. He also accepted that the governor had made a genuine effort to treat Ms Mulhall fairly and that the Child and Family Agency’s position had partly frustrated visits. The court made no substantive order because none was necessary, and struck out the proceedings with the costs order.