The High Court has ruled on a discovery application in a damages action brought by Kevin Tracey and Karen Tracey, directing production of specified prosecution records and limited Garda PULSE data while refusing access to other material.
Mr Justice Robert Eagar’s judgment, delivered on 5 April 2019, concerns a notice of motion dated 22 February 2018, made before the case was to be sent to the High Court Civil Jury List. Kevin Tracey, who was not professionally represented at the application, sought documents relating to two prosecutions that had been dismissed in the District Court.
The plaintiffs’ 2008 plenary summons seeks damages on a range of grounds, including alleged malicious prosecution and negligence. The judgment records that the first prosecution concerned an alleged failure by Kevin Tracey to wear a seat belt on 23 November 2005. It was dismissed by Judge Cormac Dunne on 6 November 2008. A second prosecution alleged threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour on 11 September 2005. Judge McMahon dismissed it on 19 March 2008; the judgment says the District Judge admonished Gardaí for bringing the prosecution without evidence. These are matters recounted in the discovery judgment, not findings made in the present application about the damages claims.
The State defendants agreed to provide applications for and decisions to issue summonses, charge sheets, declarations of service, specified Garda station logs and notebook entries relating to both charges. The court considered the information about applications and decisions sufficient to let the plaintiff identify what the defendants might use.
The court also directed discovery of Garda PULSE records relating to both charges, but limited disclosure to personal data necessary for the purpose for which it is processed. It declined to order disclosure of correspondence between Gardaí and the Director of Public Prosecutions, describing it as privileged. It also refused discovery of a Garda copy of a complainant’s statement about alleged photographs of a child, because the matter was not raised in the statement of claim and did not form part of the plaintiff’s claim.
The Courts Service defendants had agreed to produce copies of the two District Court orders dismissing the charges. The court found no reason the Chief State Solicitor’s office could not represent the Courts Service in this case, and said its use of a private firm in other proceedings was irrelevant to that decision. The judgment states that an order would be drawn up in due course; it does not set out the final order’s terms.