The Supreme Court has dismissed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ appeal against a High Court order stopping the trial of P.T., who faced 28 indecent assault charges relating to alleged offences between 1965 and 1970.
In a judgment delivered on 31 July 2007, Denham J. said the case fell within the “wholly exceptional circumstances” in which it would be unfair or unjust to put an accused on trial. The court relied on the cumulative effect of the age of the allegations, the time taken to bring the prosecution, P.T.’s age and his ill-health.
The High Court had granted judicial review and prohibited further steps in the prosecution. It considered the roughly 28 months between the complaint being notified to gardaí in May 2002 and P.T.’s appearance in court in September 2004 unacceptable and found his right to a trial with due expedition had been breached. The DPP appealed, arguing that the delay was not blameworthy and did not justify stopping the trial.
The Supreme Court said the legal test had since been clarified. It found that the High Court’s criticism of the 28-month period did not establish prosecutorial delay sufficient in law to prohibit a trial. Nor had P.T. proved, on the balance of probabilities, that delay had prejudiced him to the extent of creating a real or serious risk of an unfair trial.
The court instead considered whether the case was an exception under the principles set out in an earlier decision, H. v. The Director of Public Prosecutions. It noted that the allegations concerned events 37 to 42 years earlier; that time had passed between church authorities being told, a formal complaint, the charging of P.T. and his return for trial; and that he was in his 87th year and in bad health.
Medical evidence before the court described heart failure controlled by medication, difficulty moving around and breathlessness on minimal exertion. P.T.’s cardiologist said the stress of a criminal trial could seriously affect his health and might precipitate heart failure or an acute myocardial infarction.
The judgment stressed that no single factor was decisive. It did not rule that historic allegations, advanced age or ill-health alone prevent prosecution. The court balanced the circumstances against the public interest in prosecuting crime and concluded their combined effect justified restraining this trial. Denham J. would dismiss the appeal; the Supreme Court dismissed it.