The High Court refused an application to release a man from Mountjoy Prison under Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution, finding that his detention under a District Court sentence was lawful. Mr Justice Michael Peart said errors in the detention warrant were not fundamental, and that the applicant’s challenge to the inference supporting his conviction was an appeal issue rather than a basis for release.
The applicant had been convicted after a summary trial in Navan District Court on a charge of possessing articles with the intention that they be used in a burglary. The items included a screwdriver, claw hammer, torch, pliers and a rod. On 21 May 2014, the District Court sentenced him to eight months in prison, backdated to 4 February.
At the High Court inquiry, the Governor of Mountjoy Prison produced the warrant authorising detention. The court considered two objections to its wording. The charge sheet attached to it cited section 15 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001 without saying “as amended”. The judge held that the relevant offence provision had not been altered by the later amendments, and that the omission did not prejudice the applicant or invalidate the warrant.
The warrant also retained standard-form wording that the applicant had pleaded guilty, although he had pleaded not guilty and stood trial on the burglary-related charge. Peart described this as a clerical error that did not affect the District Court’s jurisdiction. The District Judge later amended the warrant under the slip rule. The applicant argued that the amendment should not count because it had been made without notice to him. The High Court held that notice was not required in these circumstances: the original errors were not fundamental, and the amendment corrected clerical wording in a warrant that otherwise authorised detention for the correct sentence and offence.
The applicant also argued that the District Judge had no evidential basis to infer that he intended the articles to be used in a burglary. His explanations included that the items had been left in a recently purchased car and had ordinary uses. The High Court noted the trial evidence and submissions, including the account that the car was driven away at speed when Gardaí approached and that some occupants fled after it was stopped. The judge did not decide whether the District Judge had drawn the correct inference. He held that she had acted within her jurisdiction, and that any error in assessing the evidence was a matter for an appeal on the merits. The applicant had not appealed his conviction and sentence.
The High Court concluded that detention under the warrant was in accordance with law and refused the application for release. The judgment stated that any future detention under the amended warrant would also be lawful, subject to any new ground of unlawfulness.