The Supreme Court has quashed Alan Wilson’s burglary conviction, ruling that an adverse-inference caution given to him about the suspected unlawful discharge of a firearm could not be used in proceedings for a different offence.
In a judgment delivered on 13 July 2017, Chief Justice Denham said section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 required the caution to relate to the same offence as the proceedings ultimately brought. The appeal concerned whether the section could be used at trial for an offence other than the one about which the accused was questioned when the caution was invoked.
Wilson had been arrested in June 2009 on suspicion of involvement in an unlawful firearm discharge at a house in Blanchardstown. He was later charged with burglary, alleging that he entered a house at 56 Dromheath Drive as a trespasser and committed an arrestable offence there, namely assault causing harm. The judgment said the assault did not involve a firearm.
During an interview, a Garda invoked section 19 and asked Wilson to account for his presence at a number of locations. The caution and the stated reasonable belief concerned participation in the unlawful discharge of a firearm. Wilson declined to answer the questions, apart from saying he had been stopped by gardaí on a road in Blanchardstown whose name he did not know.
At his 2013 trial in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, the prosecution sought to rely on the section 19 provisions. The trial judge allowed it. The Court of Appeal rejected Wilson’s appeal, treating the firearm and burglary offences arising from the incident as inextricably linked.
The Supreme Court held that the caution had been properly invoked in relation to the firearm-discharge offence, but that this was not the offence for which Wilson was prosecuted. It said the statutory requirements, including the warning and opportunity to consult a solicitor, had to relate to the offence charged. The court concluded that section 19 could not be used to draw inferences in the burglary trial where the caution had been expressly invoked for a different offence.
The court allowed the appeal and quashed the conviction. It did not order a retrial; the judgment said that decision was for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The court also left open a separate question: whether a section 19 caution may be invoked for an offence about which the suspect had not previously been questioned.