There has been a “catalogue of errors” by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in a case against a man charged with setting fire to a house while his partner and child were inside, the Court of Appeal was told on Tuesday, and the “door was wide open” for the case against him to be dropped.
The man had been arrested and charged with arson following the attack against the property in south Dublin in 2018.
The charge was later dropped, but he was subsequently recharged after one of the victims contacted the DPP and complained about the decision not to prosecute.
Following an internal DPP review, it was recommended that the decision not to prosecute should be overturned.
The man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – later sought a judicial review against the DPP over its decision to prosecute him a second time. The application was refused, however.
The man later appealed this decision on the grounds that in her May 2021 judgement, Ms Justice Niamh Hyland had erred in law and fact by failing to “have due regard into the number of reviews conducted by the DPP into the Appellant’s case”.
Submissions
It was further claimed the DPP had “misconstrued the Criminal Justice (Victims of Crime) Act 2017” and that submissions from “persons identified as victims” had led to the man being charged again.
It has also been claimed that previous court rulings meant the DPP was not permitted to “multiple contrary decisions” to charge and recharge the man.
“These multiple decisions” by the DPP, it was claimed, had “in all circumstances, breached fair procedures”.
At the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, James Dwyer SC, for the appellant, said his client was a vulnerable individual who suffered from numerous mental health difficulties, including anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation.
The ongoing proceedings have been “a rollercoaster ride for him, as opposed to a waiting game for someone else”, Mr Dwyer said.
The passage of time in the case, Mr Dwyer said, represented a “catalogue of errors” by the DPP and “the door was wide open for discharge in that regard”.
In response, Sunniva McDonagh SC, for the DPP, said the length of time to bring proceedings against the man had been “regrettable” but a portion of the delay could be attributed to pandemic restrictions.
Ms McDonagh added that fair procedures had not been breached by the DPP, and it was not uncommon for someone facing serious criminal charges to suffer from stress and anxiety.
Judgment has been reserved.
When the matter came before the District Court in March 2019, the judge was told the DPP had directed that the charge was to be withdrawn, and the case was struck out.
Cell
Days later, the applicant was told he was being charged with criminal damage to the cell he had been originally detained in and a date for a summary hearing at the District Court was fixed for September that year.
However, in May the same year, the DPP received a letter from one of the victims in the arson attack, asking for a review of the decision not to prosecute.
A subsequent internal DPP review found that the decision not to prosecute should be overturned, and he should be recharged. It was also recommended he should also be charged with brandishing a knife in a public place.
Although these recommendations were approved by the DPP on June 27th, 2019, gardaí were only informed of this decision on September 20th, 2019.
The District Court was then told all charges against the man, including the one of criminal damage to the garda cell, were to proceed on indictment.
Two months after the man was sent forward to trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in November 2019, he was granted a judicial review seeking an order of prohibition to injunct the DPP from prosecuting him further on the three charges against him.
