The High Court granted the plaintiff an interlocutory order under section 3 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996 concerning cash seized from the defendant’s Dublin home, finding on the balance of probabilities that the money was directly or indirectly the proceeds of crime. It also dismissed the defendant’s counterclaim.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Barry White on 31 July 2006, concerns money found during a Garda search on 6 October 1997. The search followed an armed hijacking on Malahide Road in Dublin on 9 June that year, when a truck carrying computer components valued at IR£1 million was taken. The defendant was never charged in connection with that hijacking.
Police found two bags in a bedroom containing £12,150 in sterling and IR£11,330 in Irish notes, as well as IR£1,020 in the kitchen. Some Irish notes were counterfeit; the judgment gives the value of the valid Irish currency as €11,455.40.
In November 2003, the District Court ordered the money returned to the defendant under the Police Property Act 1897. On 1 December 2003, the High Court made orders under sections 2 and 7 of the 1996 Act after finding the money constituted proceeds of criminal activity. The application before Mr Justice White sought a further order under section 3.
The judge considered evidence from a chief superintendent and a Garda who had been part of the investigation and search. The chief superintendent said he believed the money represented part of the proceeds from selling the stolen computer components. The Garda described accounts the defendant had given about the money, which the judgment characterises as vague and inconsistent, and said an explanation about telephone calls on the morning of the hijacking was demonstrably false. The judge first found reasonable grounds for the belief that the money was in the defendant’s possession or control and proceeds of crime, then found the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case.
The defendant argued that the proceedings were statute-barred, delayed, and barred by the earlier District Court order. The judge rejected those submissions, finding the money was under Garda control until the return order and that the District Court had determined apparent ownership, not whether it was proceeds of crime. He also rejected a solicitor’s claimed lien over money said to have been pledged for legal fees, because the solicitor did not have possession or control of it.
Although the judge accepted the defendant had not been prosecuted for the hijacking, he found that fact alone did not alter his conclusion. He saw no serious risk of injustice from granting the interlocutory order. The judgment does not specify the order’s further terms.