The High Court has prohibited the prosecution of a man on 14 charges alleging sexual offences against a child in 1982 and 1983, finding that allowing the trial to proceed could expose him to a real and serious risk of an unfair trial.
In a judicial review judgment delivered on 26 April 2006, Mr Justice Quirke said the applicant had established that risk on the balance of probabilities. The court granted the relief he sought. The ruling stopped the prosecution from proceeding; it did not determine whether the allegations were true. The applicant denied them.
The charges comprised six counts alleging buggery and eight alleging indecent assault. The complainant, identified as K.C., first made a written complaint to gardaí in June 1996. The alleged offences dated from 1982 and 1983, and the applicant was returned for trial in December 2001, more than five years after the written complaint.
The judge found the complainant’s delay in reporting was inordinate but had been explained by evidence about his psychological condition and personal circumstances. Applying the relevant test on the assumption the complaint was truthful, the court found the delay had not been shown to result from the applicant’s actions. It also held that the explained reporting delay did not itself breach the applicant’s right to a trial with reasonable expedition.
The court separately found more than 12 months of unexplained delay by prosecuting authorities in investigating and processing the case. It did not consider that delay, by itself, sufficient to prohibit the trial without evidence of prejudice, but said it had to be weighed with the other circumstances.
The judge rejected claims that the loss of hospital records and difficulty accessing the former address where most offences were alleged to have occurred caused sufficient specific prejudice on their own. He also rejected claims concerning three deceased witnesses as speculative. However, two psychologists who had received early disclosures from K.C. could not be located, and four other potential witnesses were unavailable. The judge said their evidence might have been relevant to the defence, though it was impossible to know whether it would have helped either side.
Taking those absences together with the lengthy and complex allegations, the passage of time and the unexplained prosecutorial delay, the court concluded that the applicant’s right to a fair and expeditious trial outweighed the community’s interest in prosecution.