THE HIGH Court Taxing Master, Charles Moran, halved the fees charged in a criminal case where costs were awarded against the DPP.
The case was the planned retrial in April 2006 of Dermot Laide for the manslaughter of Brian Murphy arising out of a brawl outside Annabel’s Disco in 2000.
The retrial was ordered by the Court of Criminal Appeal when it struck down his earlier conviction for manslaughter.
The retrial was abandoned on the morning of the planned trial when counsel for the DPP entered a nolle prosequi because of “evidential difficulties”.
Mr Laide’s lawyers were briefed privately in this trial (he was on criminal legal aid in the first trial) and submitted their costs.
Most criminal cases are defended through the criminal legal aid scheme, which has a set scale of fees identical to the fees paid by the DPP to prosecuting counsel.
The instruction fee for the solicitors in the case, Daniel Spring Co, was €200,000. There were two senior counsel in the case, Michael O’Higgins SC and John Edwards SC, each of whom charged a brief fee of €60,000, and the junior counsel, Micheál P O’Higgins (now an SC), charged a brief fee of €50,000, making a total of €370,000.
The costs went to the Taxing Master, Mr Moran, who issued a reserve (draft) ruling on June 11th, 2009.
In it he reduced the solicitor’s instruction fee to €148,000, the senior counsels’ fees to €35,000 each and the junior counsel’s fees to €23,333.33.
Both sides entered objections to his ruling. The DPP claimed that insufficient regard was had to the prior trial and the Court of Criminal Appeal hearing as a mitigating factor; he questioned the need for two senior counsel, and also said there was no recognition of the different amounts of work done by each of them; insufficient regard was had to the brief fees paid to the opposing counsel, which were €8,500; and insufficient regard was had to the fact that the retrial was on lesser charges (the first trial was for murder); insufficient regard was given to the “residue of knowledge” from the two previous hearings, and to the fact that Mr Laide had got his costs through legal aid for the first trial.
The legal costs accountants for Mr Laide sought an increase in the amount allowed on the grounds that it did not adequately reflect the work done, and that Mr Moran did not provide any basis for reducing the fees.
In his final ruling, made yesterday, Mr Moran said that he had examined the files and briefs, and had to value the new and additional work for the retrial, having regard for the residue of knowledge from the earlier trials.
He “dismissed in their totality” the objections made by the applicant.
He said that he found two senior counsel were necessary, but having regard to their different input into the case awarded €35,000 to the leading senior counsel, Mr O’Higgins, and €30,000 to the second, Mr Edwards, leaving the junior counsel’s fees unchanged.
Having regard to the “residue of knowledge” from the earlier trials, he further reduced the instruction fee to the solicitors to €65,000, with an additional sum of €25,000 for a separate “media issue”.
In relation to the media issue, Mr Moran said: “It is difficult to be precise as to what is the correct fee as there is no scientific formula that can be applied. In case I am doing an injustice to the applicant I am allowing an uplift of a further €12,000,” he added.
This brought the total solicitors instruction fee to €102,000.