The Supreme Court allowed Jason Wall’s appeal and granted an order prohibiting further prosecution on charges of reckless endangerment and unlawful seizure of a vehicle. The 11 December 2013 judgment arose from Wall’s challenge to a High Court refusal to stop the prosecution. The judgment contains differing views among the justices; the order granted the relief Wall sought.
The charges followed a fatal collision on Church Road, Killiney, on 14 August 2005. Wall was a rear-seat passenger in a Honda driven by Lyndsey Hudson. The car crossed onto the wrong side of the road and collided with an oncoming vehicle. Emma Wall, the front-seat passenger, died. A Garda collision examiner later attributed the collision’s primary cause to the Honda driver’s failure to keep to her side of the road.
Hudson initially said she did not know how the car had gone out of control. In an interview under caution on 18 August, she alleged for the first time that Jason Wall had reached forward, turned up the radio, grabbed the steering wheel and pushed it to the right. Wall had no recollection of the collision and denied interfering with the wheel. Another passenger, Stephen Wall, initially said he could not remember the night; in a February 2006 statement made while imprisoned in Mountjoy, he said Jason Wall had moved the wheel.
The car was examined by a Garda collision investigator on 23 August. He had not been told of Hudson’s allegation and did not arrange fingerprint testing of the steering wheel or radio dial. The car was released to the owner’s insurer for destruction on 29 August. Gardaí told Jason Wall of the allegation in January 2006 and requested his fingerprints, which he gave voluntarily. By then, the car had been destroyed. The judgment records that no explanation was given for the failure to test the relevant parts or for releasing the car before Wall was informed of the allegation.
In the appeal, Wall argued that the loss of the car deprived him of a reasonable opportunity to obtain forensic evidence that could support his defence. The State disputed that a fingerprint examination had been shown to have a reasonable prospect of producing relevant evidence, and relied on Wall’s prior presence in the car. These were submissions, not findings that fingerprints would have proved or disproved the allegation.
Justice Hardiman concluded that the lost opportunity created a real risk of prejudice to Wall’s chance of a fair trial and would have granted relief. The judgment also sets out other justices’ contrary views and debate about how missing-evidence cases should be handled. The appeal was allowed and the requested prohibition granted; the judgment does not determine Wall’s guilt or innocence.