A jury has heard "seriously inaccurate" evidence in the trial of the bus driver accused of dangerous driving causing the deaths of five people in Dublin city centre.
A Swedish Volvo engineer mistakenly sent inaccurate data supposedly taken from the bus involved in the incident to gardaí, which was then used in evidence during the trial of the driver.
Judge Michael White told the jury on day eight of the trial that the court learned yesterday that technical details put before it in the course of the prosecution's evidence against Kenneth Henvey were wrong.
Judge White said Marcus Fasth of Volvo in Sweden had been evaluating data taken from a more powerful South African 12 litre bus engine at the same time as he was working on data from Mr Henvey's seven litre bus engine and the figures "became mixed up".
Judge White said the figures were "seriously inaccurate" and he accepted that a genuine error had been made by Mr Fasth. He said this was a "serious matter", withdrew the inaccurate exhibit and gave the prosecution permission to reopen their case.
Mr Henvey (51), of Whitethorn Crescent, Palmerstown, Dublin, has denied dangerous driving causing the deaths of two men and three women at Wellington Quay on February 21st, 2004.
The prosecution had closed its case on Tuesday and Thomas O'Connell SC (with Patrick McGrath BL), prosecuting, were allowed a day to consider highly technical evidence given by a defence expert.
That expert, Dr Dennis Woods, had unknowingly used the inaccurate data as provided by the prosecution to give evidence that Mr Henvey's engine had experienced excess power for over 40 per cent of its working hours.
The jury heard that the prosecution's legal team met at the chief prosecution solicitor's office on Wednesday. Mr Fasth was contacted by telephone and said he had sent the wrong document. Mr Fasth travelled to Dublin and appeared in court yesterday. He told the jury he had never previously carried out two evaluations of bus engine data simultaneously and "unfortunately some numbers got mixed up". He said he was "very, very sorry".
Garda Adrian Tucker earlier gave evidence in relation to the inaccurate data and retook the witness stand to explain that Mr Fasth had first travelled to Dublin in December 2006 and downloaded electronic information from Mr Henvey's bus on to a laptop.
Garda Tucker said that material was made available through John Thorpe of Irish Commercials, the Irish importer of Volvo, and it was handed over to Mr Henvey's defence team. Garda Tucker said he received the data only days before the trial began and noticed that the number of engine operating hours and mileage quoted did not seem to tally with Mr Henvey's bus.
Mr Thorpe told the jury that he had briefly looked at the data e-mailed to him by Mr Fasth and had noticed a discrepancy in relation to the engine running hours. He said he rang Mr Fasth to check if he had the correct document.
Mr O'Connell presented a new table of data downloaded from Mr Henvey's bus which Mr Fasth provided after he realised his mistake. Mr Fasth said the data showed how the bus engine had behaved over the course of its lifetime. Asked by Mr O'Connell if there was any indication that it had behaved abnormally at any time, he replied "no, not at all".
Mr Fasth said that if anything abnormal occurred it would register as a "fault code" or shut down the engine. He said "we are very tough on these types of functions".
To which Mr Gageby said: "I object to the promotional speech."Mr Fasth denied Mr Gageby's suggestion that he did not believe in power surges, "of course they exist but we monitor them and then we shut them down". Mr Gageby said it had been a "big mistake" to trust the data "last time" and said "we have to trust this data is alright".
The trial continues.