The High Court has refused two linked judicial review applications seeking to prevent criminal proceedings against Emad Massoud and Gehan Massoud from proceeding in the Dublin Metropolitan District Court.
In a judgment delivered on 17 February 2006, Mr Justice John MacMenamin held that the Dublin court had jurisdiction because the alleged offences were said to have occurred within its district. The court declined the applications for prohibition. It did not determine the criminal charges or make findings that the allegations were true.
Emad Massoud, a medical doctor, was charged with obtaining money by false pretences under the Larceny Act 1916, as amended. The allegation was that he and his wife made a false claim under a critical illness insurance policy in her name, claiming she had undergone surgery for breast cancer. The insurer, Scottish Provident Ireland, paid €685,658.56. It was alleged that the tissue examined belonged to Gehan Massoud’s mother and that a procedure was arranged to make it appear that Gehan Massoud had a lump removed from her left breast.
A detective sergeant swore arrest informations before Kilcock District Court on 22 June 2004. A judge there issued warrants, which were executed at the couple’s home in Co Meath. They were taken to Dublin Metropolitan District Court, charged and remanded on bail. The detective sergeant said he had discussed bringing them before the Dublin court with their solicitor, who agreed they should be brought there. The solicitor disputed that he had consented to the court’s jurisdiction, saying he had understood the call as notification and had not been told the warrants had been issued at Kilcock. The judge recounted both accounts.
The applicants argued that obtaining the warrants in Kilcock meant they had to be brought before a court in that district, or that the Dublin court should transfer the cases back. The judge found that the warrants were issued in accordance with law and were not confined to the district where they were obtained. He said the statutory requirement was to bring an arrested person before a District Court judge with jurisdiction over the alleged offence as soon as practicable. The alleged location of the offences gave the Dublin Metropolitan District Court that jurisdiction.
The judge distinguished an earlier case in which the court first presented with charges had no jurisdiction based on where the offence occurred, the accused lived or the arrest took place. He said it was unnecessary to decide whether the arrest process would independently affect the District Court’s jurisdiction, or to resolve the possible conflict between provisions of the 1851 and 1951 legislation. The applications were declined; no order stopping the criminal proceedings was made.