The Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution of D.D. could proceed on 10 counts arising from allegations by five former residents of an industrial school. It maintained a prohibition on one count arising from a sixth complainant’s allegation.
D.D. had faced 34 charges concerning 10 complainants. A High Court order in June 2005 prohibited prosecution on 11 counts relating to six complainants but refused to prohibit the other 23. After the Director of Public Prosecutions undertook at the Supreme Court hearing not to prosecute some counts, the court considered six counts on D.D.’s appeal and five on the DPP’s cross-appeal.
D.D. argued that complainant and prosecutorial delay, prejudice to his defence and insufficiently precise dates meant the remaining prosecutions should be stopped. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal concerning counts 9, 10, 12, 13, 16 and 17, relating to allegations by K.S., J.C. and P.H. It said the claimed period of prosecutorial delay—one year and nine months while other judicial review cases were resolved—was reasonable in the circumstances. It also found D.D. had not shown that missing witnesses or demolished school buildings created a real and serious risk of an unfair trial.
On the DPP’s cross-appeal, the court allowed prosecution to proceed on counts 3, 4, 18 and 19, relating to J.D. and J.B. It found the allegations could be placed within a sufficiently narrow period based on the statements described in the judgment. The court dismissed the cross-appeal on count 5, relating to G.T., because it concerned one alleged incident over a seven-year span; the prohibition on that count therefore remained.
The court’s decision concerned whether prosecution should be prohibited, not whether the allegations were proved. Its order permitted trial to proceed on counts 3, 4, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18 and 19.