The Supreme Court has dismissed Robert Dunne’s attempt to stop his robbery prosecution on the basis that potentially useful CCTV footage was no longer available.
The case concerned a January 1998 robbery at the Parkway Services filling station in Palmerstown, Co Dublin, where three youths, one armed with a knife, allegedly took about £300 and cigarettes from an attendant. Dunne later allegedly made a signed statement admitting involvement after being questioned while detained on an unrelated firearms matter.
His lawyers argued that CCTV cameras operating at the filling station may have recorded the robbery and could potentially have provided evidence tending to exonerate him. The station manager said Gardaí routinely viewed and took tapes after incidents, while Detective Garda Denis Kenny repeatedly denied that the relevant recording had ever come into Garda or prosecution possession.
The High Court judge had considered it more likely than not that Gardaí had received the tapes but refused to prohibit the trial, partly because of delay in seeking the footage.
On appeal, Fennelly J. held that the factual conflict could not properly be resolved on affidavits alone. The court found there was evidence that a CCTV system existed and that Gardaí knew about it, but no direct proof that the disputed tape had ever entered Garda possession.
The judgment distinguished the case from Braddish v DPP, where Gardaí had actually possessed and later returned a robbery video which was subsequently erased. Fennelly J. said missing evidence may justify stopping a prosecution where its loss creates a real or serious and unavoidable risk of an unfair trial, but Dunne had not met that threshold.
The ruling leaves the robbery prosecution free to proceed. The court did not determine Dunne’s guilt or innocence, only whether the absence of the CCTV footage made a fair trial impossible.