The Supreme Court dismissed Patrick Enright’s appeal seeking to prohibit his trial on ten forgery charges, leaving the High Court judgment in place. The court had delivered its decision on 4 October 2012 and set out its reasons in a judgment dated 26 October.
Enright is indicted on ten counts of forgery under section 4(1) of the Forgery Act 1913, arising from alleged incidents between 1 January and 21 August 1994. His appeal challenged the High Court’s refusal to halt the trial. This was his second judicial review application based on delay; an earlier Supreme Court decision had rejected his complaints of actual prejudice, which the court said could not be reopened in these proceedings.
After that earlier decision, the case was repeatedly adjourned in Tralee District Court because the designated judge was sitting elsewhere. The Supreme Court noted that neither side asked for another judge to be assigned. The State Solicitor for Kerry was also acquainted with Enright, and a replacement solicitor had been ill. The District Court rejected Enright’s delay application on 1 February 2010. After depositions were taken, he was returned for trial at the next sittings of the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee.
The case was listed to fix trial dates on 21 May and 4 October 2010. On the first date, the prosecution said it could not proceed until mid-July; on the second, there was no appearance for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The trial was fixed for 5 April 2011. Enright applied for leave to seek judicial review on 28 February 2011.
The Supreme Court said the prosecution had a heightened obligation to ensure progress after the earlier judgment and had been blameworthy for delay, including non-appearances and failure to seek reassignment. But it found no actual prejudice from the later delay. Enright had not lost his liberty, claimed specific stress or anxiety, or shown impairment of his defence. The court also noted that the case relied largely on documents and that Enright had not sought an early trial or a different judge.
The court weighed those circumstances against the public interest in prosecuting crime and concluded Enright had not shown, on the balance of probabilities, that he could not receive a fair trial. It held that delay alone did not require prohibition.
Enright had accepted €9,500 from the Government of Ireland in a European Court of Human Rights friendly settlement described as a final resolution of his delay complaint. The Supreme Court said a finding of delay does not automatically make a trial unfair or require it to stop. It concluded that the Strasbourg settlement did not determine the prohibition application, which concerned only whether the pending trial should be halted.
The appeal was dismissed and the High Court judgment upheld. The Supreme Court’s earlier direction that the prosecution apply for the trial to be relisted at the earliest time remained part of the procedural history; the judgment did not itself set a new trial date.