The High Court ruled that an application for a summons against Simon Stafford over alleged dangerous driving and associated offences in Wexford was made within the applicable six-month time limit.
In a judgment delivered on 14 June 2005, Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan answered a case stated by the District Court. The question was whether the prosecuting Garda Sergeant’s application, made on 28 February 2003, was in time for alleged offences said to have occurred at Kilmore, Co Wexford, on 31 August 2002.
The defence had sought dismissal on the basis that the six-month period expired on 27 February 2003. It argued that the date of the alleged offences counted as the first day and that, because August’s final day had no equivalent in February 2003, the deadline fell on the second-last day of February.
The prosecution argued that the application was timely. The High Court concluded that section 11(h) of the Interpretation Act 1937 did not govern the calculation. The time limit came from section 10(4) of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act 1851, which the judge said was not an Act of the Oireachtas. The court therefore applied the settled Irish rule that excluded the date of the offence when calculating the six months.
The judge also addressed the alternative calculation in case the offence date were included. She rejected the defence’s proposed 27 February deadline, explaining that where the equivalent date does not exist in the sixth calendar month, the period ends on that month’s final day. On that alternative approach, the deadline would have been 28 February 2003.
The court’s answer was limited to the timing question referred in the case stated: it held that the summons application was made within six months of the alleged offence. The judgment did not determine the underlying dangerous-driving allegations.