By Clara Finn
The Supreme Court has stopped the prosecution of a retired teacher on eight indecent assault charges arising from allegations said to date back almost four decades.
P.L., then aged 76, was accused by former pupil B.L. of assaults allegedly committed between July 1966 and June 1968 at a school in a large provincial town. P.L., a member of a religious order, consistently denied the allegations.
B.L. alleged that the abuse occurred during stamp-collecting classes when pupils approached the teacher's desk individually. He described the desk as tall and enclosed at the front and sides, saying its structure concealed what happened from other pupils in the room.
P.L. recalled a different type of desk: a low table which was not enclosed. By the time of the prosecution, the original furniture was gone and no reliable independent evidence establishing its design could be found.
Mr Justice Hardiman, delivering the Supreme Court judgment, held that this missing evidence mattered because the desk's structure could have provided an objective way of testing the allegation. Its unavailability after such a long interval created a real and serious risk of an unfair trial.
The court also examined uncertainty over when the stamp-collecting classes took place. B.L. initially said they occurred on Saturday mornings. After P.L. gave information suggesting he was otherwise occupied on Saturdays, the prosecution case became less definite, with B.L. saying classes were held only occasionally on Saturdays and other material suggesting Fridays.
The Supreme Court stressed that it was not deciding whether the allegation was true or false. Its task was to decide whether a fair criminal trial remained possible.
Hardiman J. concluded that, after 36 to 38 years, the case had effectively become a contest between allegation and denial without reliable surrounding facts against which either account could be tested.
The appeal was allowed and the DPP was prohibited from taking any further step in the prosecution.