Mr Justice Hardiman said the prosecution of Liam Cosgrave on five corruption charges brought in 2010 should be prohibited, finding that the State had no credible special reason for leaving those charges out of an earlier case based on substantially the same evidence.
His judgment, delivered in the Supreme Court on 26 April 2012, was one in an appeal against a High Court refusal to stop the prosecution. Hardiman J. said he would set aside that High Court order and prohibit further prosecution on the 2010 charges. The supplied extract does not include the court’s overall disposition or establish the final order made by the Supreme Court.
Cosgrave had been charged in 2005 with making false or misleading political donation statements. He pleaded guilty to one count and received 75 hours of community service in place of six months’ imprisonment. In October 2010, he was charged with five offences of corruptly receiving payments from Frank Dunlop, allegedly in connection with votes on the zoning of land at Carrickmines.
Hardiman J. said the authorities had the evidence underlying the later charges before the 2005 case. Dunlop was the principal witness in both proceedings, and his earlier statement of proposed evidence listed the payments later alleged to be corrupt. The judge found that four of the five 2010 allegations fell within the broad period covered by the 2005 count, and that the evidence in the two cases substantially overlapped.
Cosgrave’s lawyers had sought all statements Dunlop made to gardaí. Hardiman J. said the prosecution disclosed only some material and withheld statements alleging corrupt payments. He rejected the State’s submission that the corruption charges could not have been brought earlier because Dunlop had not yet been prosecuted. Dunlop had already been used as a witness in the 2005 case, despite the authorities possessing statements in which he described making corrupt payments.
Hardiman J. applied the principle that, as a general rule, charges arising from the same facts should be brought together, subject to special circumstances. He said none had been credibly established, and considered the delay and non-disclosure unfair and oppressive to Cosgrave. Cosgrave denied receiving corrupt payments; the judgment extract does not report a trial or finding on whether the allegations were true.