THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions has failed to overturn a District Court judge’s decision striking out a charge of sexual assault against a man who pleaded guilty and made a donation to charity through the District Court poor box.
The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, yesterday dismissed the DPP’s judicial review application to quash the decision of District Judge Ann Ryan striking out the charge.
Mr Justice Kearns said the man was charged with assault after an incident at a house in Dublin in April 2009 where the female complainant and her fiance held a party. The man knew the fiance through rugby but was apparently not invited to the party.
The complainant went to her bedroom about 3am where she lay on her bed fully clothed and fell asleep. She lay on her side as she was feeling ill. The accused man had consumed up to 14 pints of beer before arriving at the party and drank another 2½ cans there before going upstairs to sleep. He said he found what he believed to be an empty bed and fell asleep.
The woman said she awoke during the night to find a person with his chest to her back, his hand in her underwear and his fingers touching her intimately.
She assumed it was her fiance and returned to sleep. Her brother came on the scene, and then her fiance forcibly removed the accused from the bedroom.
In November 2010, the District Court hearing was told the accused, who pleaded guilty, had brought €1,500 in compensation.
The complainant was contacted about this and indicated she did not want the money and it could be paid to charity.
The judge accepted the money for payment to charity and struck out the charge against the man. The DPP then initiated his judicial review.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Kearns noted that the DPP had directed the charge be tried as a summary matter, which brought the case within the confines of the District Court’s jurisdiction.
Despite some lack of clarity surrounding the origin and development of the poor box jurisdiction, it was from time immemorial part of the remedies available in limited circumstances to District Court judges to apply where the facts of a case suggested the higher interests of justice would be served by doing so.
