The High Court quashed an order returning a redacted applicant for trial on 81 indecent assault counts, finding that excessive prosecution delay and a failure to provide fair procedures each entitled him to relief.
Mr Justice John MacMenamin delivered the judgment on 1 March 2006. The court was hearing the applicant’s judicial review challenge after his trial had been adjourned pending the case. It did not decide the criminal allegations. Its order quashed the return for trial; the judgment did not acquit the applicant or determine guilt.
The counts concerned two complainants, identified in the judgment as A.G. and S.C. The alleged offences were said to have occurred between 1986 and 1987, when the complainants were aged between seven and 10. Both made complaints in 1987. The applicant was arrested that November and made a statement described in the judgment as largely inculpatory. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided in July 1989 that there should be no prosecution, citing the attitude of one complainant’s family and the apparent lack of interest of the other’s family.
The complainants made further statements in 2000. After a renewed investigation and review, the DPP directed in February 2004 that there should again be no prosecution. That decision was reversed in July 2004, and the applicant was arrested the following month. The judge found that no significant new evidence had been identified to justify prosecution. He also found that the authorities’ handling of the case included unexplained periods of delay, including time when the investigation was not progressed while the investigating Garda was on sick leave.
On delay, the judge held that the prosecution process had taken an unacceptable length of time. He concluded that the applicant did not need to establish prejudice to obtain relief in the circumstances.
On fair procedures, the judge found that the applicant had been told in 1987 that there was a problem with physical evidence and that, after the 1989 decision not to prosecute, there was no further action for 13 years. Taken together, those circumstances gave him a reasonable basis to understand there would be no further prosecution. He had not been told the decision could be reviewed or reversed, and was not given an opportunity to make written submissions before it was reversed. The judge therefore quashed the order returning him for trial on both grounds.