The High Court has set aside Gerard Reilly’s District Court conviction for a road traffic offence after finding that the trial judge’s interventions during a Garda witness’s evidence made the hearing fundamentally unfair.
The prosecution arose from events on 28 September 2018. Reilly was accused of driving under the influence of alcohol. At his District Court trial on 10 October 2019, a central issue was whether the prosecution had proved that the breath specimen relied upon was taken within three hours of his driving.
The prosecuting Garda said Reilly had stated that an accident occurred about ten minutes before the Garda arrived. During cross-examination, however, the Garda also accepted several times that he had asked Reilly what time the accident happened.
That distinction mattered because Reilly’s solicitor argued that an answer obtained by questioning without a prior caution should not be admitted to prove the time of driving.
The District Court judge recalled and questioned the Garda. During further cross-examination, the judge intervened and ultimately asked the witness to clarify whether he had asked Reilly the time. The Garda then answered that he had not. The judge later said the Garda had volunteered the information, convicted Reilly, fined him €250 and disqualified him from driving for two years.
Simons J held that an ordinary disagreement about the judge’s assessment of confused evidence would have been a matter for appeal to the Circuit Court. But the complaint here went further.
The High Court found that the judge’s interventions were capable of being understood as undermining the defence cross-examination and coaching the Garda on the crucial disputed point. A further intervention describing the Garda as inexperienced also should not have occurred.
The court concluded that the trial judge had, albeit with good intentions, descended into the arena and created a reasonable apprehension that the case was not being approached impartially.
The conviction was therefore set aside. The court deferred deciding whether the case should simply be quashed or sent back to a different District Court judge for rehearing.