The High Court has refused an application to stop a criminal prosecution over the failure to seek possible CCTV footage of an arrest in Dundalk. Mr Justice McGovern ruled that the applicant had not established a real risk that he could not receive a fair trial.
The judicial review concerned a prosecution pending before Louth Circuit Criminal Court under Bill of Indictment No. LH 90/03. The applicant faced public order, assault and resisting-arrest charges arising from events on 14 January 2001 at Earl Street and Dundalk Garda Station. He sought an order prohibiting or restraining the Director of Public Prosecutions from pursuing the case, arguing that Gardaí had not sought or preserved video evidence that might assist his defence.
The applicant alleged that Gardaí used excessive force during his arrest and later assaulted him at the station. Garda statements described a different account, saying he had been involved in a street melee, was bleeding from the head, resisted arrest and assaulted Gardaí at the station. These were competing accounts in the judgment, not findings resolving the criminal charges.
The applicant argued that cameras outside the nightclub known as “58 X” might have covered much of Earl Street and corroborated his account. The club owner’s evidence was that the two cameras were intended to cover the immediate area outside the entrance. They were sometimes turned away by third parties, but there was no evidence that either camera had been directed at Earl Street during the incident. The court said they could instead have faced a wall, the sky or another direction.
The judge accepted that Gardaí have a general duty to seek and preserve evidence relevant to guilt or innocence, subject to limits. He said this case concerned a failure to seek evidence and that it had not been established whether relevant footage ever existed. The court also noted that the applicant’s earlier correspondence did not specifically request investigation of security-camera footage, and found unnecessary delay in seeking it.
The judge held that the possibility the cameras captured the arrest was theoretical and that footage of Earl Street would not address charges relating to events at the Garda station. The applicant had not shown the “real risk” of an unavoidable unfair trial required to prohibit a prosecution. The court refused the relief sought; it did not determine the applicant’s guilt or innocence.