The High Court has rejected William Kane’s challenge to a District Court order authorising the continued detention of £6,650 seized from him at Dublin Port. Ms Justice Murphy ruled that the order was valid and that the related forfeiture application was properly before the Circuit Court. The High Court did not decide whether the cash should ultimately be forfeited.
Customs officers seized the sterling cash on 9 July 2015 after a detection dog indicated at the centre console of a vehicle in which Kane and his wife had arrived by ferry from Liverpool. Officers later found the money concealed inside the console. Kane initially said it came from selling a car in Birmingham; a later explanation through his lawyers was that it came from a jewellery sale about two years earlier. These explanations were recorded in the judgment; the High Court did not determine the cash’s origin.
The detention was extended through a series of District Court orders. On 31 March 2017, Inspector Patrick Roche applied for a further three months. The District Court granted the application, relying on evidence that the source of the cash had not been identified and remained under investigation. The Director of Public Prosecutions directed forfeiture proceedings on 6 April 2017. Those proceedings were issued on 8 June and were pending in the Circuit Court.
Kane sought judicial review, arguing that the evidence did not meet the statutory requirements for continued detention and that errors in the order’s recitals made it invalid. The High Court considered the transcript of the District Court hearing. It found that the District Judge had reasonable grounds for suspicion and was entitled to conclude that detention was justified while the cash’s origin or derivation was further investigated. The judge also treated consideration of criminal proceedings as an alternative basis under the statute.
The High Court held that the errors in the order’s recitals— including an incorrect previous expiry date—did not invalidate it. It also found that the challenge to those errors fell outside the grounds on which Kane had been granted leave to seek judicial review. Even if considered, the errors caused no confusion or ambiguity on the evidence before the court.
The court dismissed Kane’s challenge to the detention order and held that the forfeiture application had been issued while the cash was detained under a valid order. The Circuit Court remained the forum to determine the forfeiture application. The High Court made no finding that the money represented proceeds of crime or was intended for criminal use.