A WOMAN has won a Supreme Court order halting a bid by the DPP to prosecute her a second time over an incident in which another woman was permanently scarred after being “glassed” in the face in a Dublin city nightclub.
The DPP moved to have the woman tried on indictment for assault of Dionne Taylor after the District Court, due to the prosecution’s failure to turn up because the prosecuting garda entered the wrong trial date in his diary, dismissed summary proceedings against her on the same charge.
The DPP’s own “actions and inaction” brought about the situation where the woman, having been acquitted on a summary charge carrying a maximum sentence of one year’s jail, could now be tried on indictment on the same charge but carrying a maximum sentence of five years, Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman said.
It would be “seriously unjust” to allow that to happen. The DPP was effectively trying to proceed as if he never consented to summary trial, never fixed a trial date, never failed to turn up at the trial and the case was never dismissed.
He did not believe the DPP was motivated by malice towards the woman but it seemed, in his anxiety to get a case which had gone “off the rails” up and running again, the DPP had acted with insensitivity towards her position.
He was giving the Supreme Court’s two-to-one majority decision allowing the woman’s appeal against the High Court’s rejection of her bid to halt her prosecution for assault in May 2005. Mr Justice Liam McKechnie agreed with Mr Justice Hardiman, while Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell dissented.
The woman was summonsed in July 2007 to appear before the District Court on a charge of assault causing harm to Ms Taylor. That offence can be tried either summarily or on indictment at the choice of the prosecution.
In the District Court, the prosecuting garda indicated the DPP’s consent to summary trial and Judge Brian Smith accepted summary jurisdiction.
The woman pleaded not guilty and a trial date was set for March 7th, 2008. When the prosecution did not attend, the judge made an order dismissing the charge.
Three months later, the woman was charged with the same offence, with the DPP saying he now wanted a trial on indictment. Her lawyers challenged the DPP’s move as an abuse of process.
Mr Justice Hardiman noted that after the prosecution said “the culprit” was identified by CCTV, the woman’s solicitors had sought that footage. It was never produced and a prosecuting garda had said “some spanner” had broken it.
After the case was dismissed by the District Court, the matter appeared to have been considered in the DPP’s office “for the first time”, resulting in the woman being again charged.
He dismissed the DPP’s argument that the District Court had no jurisdiction to make the dismissal order in 2008 and noted the DPP had never sought to appeal that order of 3½ years ago.
He also found “frankly astonishing” the DPP’s argument he was not aware summary proceedings had been instituted against the woman. The DPP had in 2007 authorised gardaí generally to consent on his behalf to summary disposal of charges such as in this case and could not complain the prosecuting garda here had acted on that authority.
Mr Justice O’Donnell, dissenting, said the woman had made an inculpatory statement that she had been drinking and had taken ecstasy on the day of the assault and also stating: “I think I had a glass in my hand, I don’t remember hitting the girl in the face, I know that I did it.”
While the prosecution should show sensitivity to an accused, it must also be sensitive to the interests of citizens in seeking that an alleged offence resulting in permanent disfigurement of a young woman should at least be subject of a trial on the facts or law or both.
It was not satisfactory to have to explain this serious matter could not proceed because of a District Court order which suggested there was a trial on the merits resulting in the case being dismissed when there was not, he said, nor was it a sufficient explanation to say the entire trial should be prohibited because a garda made a mistake about dates.
