The Court of Appeal has dismissed Detective Sergeant Joseph Higgins’s appeal against a High Court decision refusing to stop a Garda disciplinary investigation into whether he failed to secure an official vehicle after a crash.
The remaining allegation concerns whether official property in the vehicle was left vulnerable to theft or compromise. The court held that this raised different issues from the two road traffic charges on which Mr Higgins had been acquitted. It therefore found that the first condition in Article 8(2) of the Garda Síochána (Discipline) Regulations 2007 was not met. Both conditions in that regulation must be satisfied to bar disciplinary proceedings after an acquittal.
The crash happened at about 2am on 15 June 2012 at Exit 2 of the N2 northbound motorway in Finglas. The Garda vehicle rolled onto its side and hit the central median barrier. Mr Higgins was injured and treated for a brain haemorrhage. He said he had no memory of the accident. His general practitioner said that memory loss was consistent with a brain injury.
The District Court dismissed charges that Mr Higgins had failed to report the collision and failed to keep the vehicle at or near the scene. The Court of Appeal’s account says the District Judge accepted medical evidence that a brain injury had affected Mr Higgins’s judgment and that he was not fully in command of his faculties at the time. Those charges were distinct from the disciplinary allegation that he failed to secure official property in the vehicle.
The Garda investigation had initially considered four allegations. In October 2014, Superintendent Dermot Mann wrote that only the vehicle-security allegation remained and asked to interview Mr Higgins. Mr Higgins challenged the proposed investigation under Article 8, which bars proceedings if they would inquire into the same issues as an acquittal on the merits and would be unfair and oppressive in the circumstances.
The Court of Appeal held that Article 8’s restriction is objective: whether its conditions apply is ultimately for a court to assess, rather than depending on a prior view by Garda authorities. It also rejected the argument that Superintendent Mann had been invalidly appointed to investigate, because the Chief Superintendent who appointed him had delegated authority to perform the Commissioner’s disciplinary functions.
The court did not decide whether continuing the investigation would be oppressive after assessment of any evidence Mr Higgins might provide. It said Garda authorities could discontinue it if they concluded that continuation would be oppressive. The court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the High Court decision.