A District Court judge has dismissed dangerous driving charges against Fine Gael MEP Ms Avril Doyle on the grounds that the State's delay in taking the case was prejudicial to her.
The case came before Judge Anne Watkin in the Dublin District Court yesterday, two years and nine months after the car accident relating to the charges occurred. For that reason the case would "have to be dismissed", the judge said.
Ms Doyle, Kitestown, Co Wexford, had been facing charges of careless driving, driving without reasonable consideration and dangerous driving alleged to have occurred on the M50 at Santry on March 26th, 2002, when her car and another vehicle were in collision.
Ms Doyle was contesting the charges.
Gardaí said they delivered a summons for the charges to Ms Doyle's address on September 9th, 2002, and a court date was set for February 21st, 2003.
Ms Doyle's legal representatives said she had never received the summons and the case was struck out. A second summons was served on, and received by Ms Doyle, for the same offences, in January 2004.
She was due to appear in court on April 22nd, but failed to appear. A bench warrant for her arrest was issued by Judge John Coughlan and Ms Doyle appeared in court the following day.
Her previous non-appearance was due to a diary error which led to the mix-up, where her solicitors were supposed to appear to represent her as she had commitments in Strasbourg.
Ms Doyle's solicitors accepted responsibility for the error and a new court date was set.
Judge Watkin said that a delay of two years and one month in the case coming before the courts, had it been heard in April this year, was in itself excessively long. "Once a case goes beyond a year, you're in difficulty. That could be sufficient to defeat the State's case."
The delay of two years and nine months was "well in excess of what is acceptable", she said.
Ms Doyle made a brief appearance in the witness box yesterday to confirm she had no knowledge of the summons for the original court date. "I never received the first summons," she said.
Judge Watkin said it was through no fault of Ms Doyle's that she did not receive that summons and the State had no proof the summons was ever served.
She added that after the first case was struck out it took another 11 months for the State to issue a new summons.
The court could not expect witnesses' recollections of the events to be reliable after such a long delay, Judge Watkin said, and the delay, in itself, was prejudicial to Ms Doyle.
"It is in breach of a person's rights to make them wait so long," the judge said.
