D v The Director of Public Prosecutions
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Mr. Justice Edwards |
| Judgment Date | 16 November 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] IECA 315 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Ireland) |
| Docket Number | Record No: 228/2022 Record No. 230/2022 |
[2023] IECA 315
Birmingham P.
Donnelly J.
Edwards J.
Record No: 228/2022
Record No. 229/2022
Record No. 230/2022
THE COURT OF APPEAL
JUDGMENT of the Court delivered by Mr. Justice Edwards on the 16 th of November 2023
The present appeals have been brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions (i.e. “the appellant” or “the Director”) against the judgment of the High Court (Phelan J.) delivered on the 8th of July 2022 and consequent Orders of certiorari dated the 25th of July 2022 (perfected on the 26th of August 2022). By these Orders, the High Court had quashed certain orders of the District Court (District Court Judge Hughes) refusing jurisdiction to try the named respondents summarily in circumstances where the offences with which the respondents were accused of committing were deemed by that court not to be “minor” in nature.
On the 18th of June 2019, two juvenile males were convicted of the murder of a Ms. Anastasia Kriégal in May 2018. Throughout the trial, and subsequent thereto, these children were referred to as “ Boy A” and “ Boy B”, respectively. On the date of their conviction, it was ordered by the Central Criminal Court (McDermott J.) that no material, which may tend to identify either juvenile, could be published.
More generally, s. 252 of the Children Act 2001 (hereinafter “the Act of 2001”) operates to the same effect and attaches criminal sanction to such publication. For the purposes of this judgment, the relevant provisions of this section (as in force at the time of the alleged offences) are as follows:
“ Anonymity of child in court proceedings.
252. (1) Subject to subsection (2), in relation to any proceedings for an offence against a child or where a child is a witness in any such proceedings—
(a) no report which reveals the name, address or school of the child or includes any particulars likely to lead to his or her identification, and
(b) no picture which purports to be or include a picture of the child or which is likely to lead to his or her identification,
shall be published or included in a broadcast.
[…]
(4) Subsections (3) to (6) of section 51 shall apply, with the necessary modifications, for the purposes of this section.”
For completeness, s. 51 of the Act of 2001 is also included:
“Protection of identity of children
51.—(1) Subject to subsection (2), no report shall be published or included in a broadcast—
(a) in relation to the admission of a child to the Programme or the proceedings at any conference relating to the child, including the contents of any action plan for the child and of the report of the conference, or
(b) which reveals the name, address or school of the child or any other information, including any picture, which is likely to lead to identification of the child.
[…]
(3) If any matter is published or broadcast in contravention of subsection (1), each of the following persons, namely—
(a) in the case of publication of the matter in a newspaper or periodical, any proprietor, any editor and any publisher of the newspaper or periodical,
(b) in the case of any other such publication, the person who publishes it, and
(c) in the case of any such broadcast, any body corporate which transmits or provides the programme in which the broadcast is made and any person having functions in relation to the programme corresponding to those of an editor of a newspaper,
shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable—
(i) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £1,500 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both, or
(ii) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding £10,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or both.
[…]
(6) In this section—
“broadcast” means the transmission, relaying or distribution by wireless telegraphy of communications, sounds, signs, visual images or signals, intended for direct reception by the general public whether such communications, sounds, signs, visual images or signals are actually received or not.
“publish” means publish to the public or a section of the public, and cognate words shall be construed accordingly.”
On the 19th of June 2019, it came to the attention of members of An Garda Síochána, in particular a Detective Inspector Mark O'Neill (otherwise “D/Insp. O'Neill”) who was the senior investigating officer in relation to the murder of Ms. Kriégal, that images were in circulation on social media that depicted and identified Boy A and Boy B. These images were further accompanied by comments, some of which referred to the juveniles by name, and others that stated the name of the school at which they previously attended. This discovery prompted the opening of a Garda investigation into alleged breaches of s. 252 of the Act of 2001 and of McDermott J.'s order barring publication of material identifying Boy A and Boy B. In the course of this investigation, several persons came to Garda attention as suspects. Among them, the three respondents: Mr. Kyle Rooney, Mr. Declan Corcoran, and Ms. Edel Doherty.
The prosecution case against Mr. Rooney is summarised as follows. On the 19th of June 2019, at 10:34am, a “ tweet” or post was published on social media site Twitter by a user operating under the name “ Kyle Rooney @KyleRooney08”. It included two photographs and an accompanying comment stating “ Boy and B ladies and gentleman! They deserve everything they're gona get, scumbags (sic)”. The first photograph depicted Boy A and was captioned “ Meet the horrible cunt that killed the 14-year-old on Leixlip”. The second photograph depicted a number of children together against the background of a school setting, Boy A and Boy B among them. The author of the tweet had crudely drawn over the children to conceal their visages, but they had retained the faces of two children which were encircled in red and labelled “ A” and “ B”, respectively.
In his witness statement dated the 26th of June 2019, D/Insp. O'Neill averred that by the time he had accessed the post on Twitter, it had been “ retweeted” or shared by some twenty-two other Twitter users. This would have been sometime within the space of two hours from the tweet's publication, as at 11:40am on the 19th of June 2019, D/Insp. O'Neill took a “ screenshot” or print-screen of the tweet, which screenshot has been tendered in the Book of Evidence available to the court below and to this Court. In the High Court, the appellant submitted that this tweet marked the only instance that images of Boy A and Boy B were observed by the investigation to have been formatted as a collage.
Subsequent to the discovery of this tweet, gardaí made a number of enquiries in the hope of discovering the identity of the person behind user “ @KyleRooney08”. A Garda Sergeant Ronan Dunne (otherwise “Sgt. Dunne”) was tasked with this responsibility. In the early afternoon of the 19th of June 2019, Sgt. Dunne contacted Mr. Rooney, the respondent, by way of telephone. As Sgt. Dunne averred in his statement of evidence, dated the 19th of July 2019, he informed Mr. Rooney that the tweets he had made, including the publication of the photographs depicting Boy A and Boy B, were in contravention of McDermott J.'s order, and further constituted an offence under s. 252 of the Act of 2001. Sgt. Dunne averred that Mr. Rooney accepted that he had made the tweets in question but that he had done so not realising that this action amounted to a criminal offence. Mr. Rooney undertook to remove the tweets “ immediately”, which he did, and he further undertook to not engage in such behaviour again. At this time, Mr. Rooney was approximately 23 years of age.
On the 11th of July 2019, Mr. Rooney and his solicitor attended at Clontarf Garda Station for the purpose of participating in a voluntary cautioned recorded interview, conducted by a Detective Sergeant Michelle Gillick (otherwise “D/Sgt. Gillick”) and a Detective Garda Allan McCarthy (otherwise “D/Garda McCarthy”). As D/Sgt. Gillick averred in her statement dated the 16th of July 2019, at this interview Mr. Rooney was presented with hard copy facsimiles of the twitter page of user “ @KyleRooney08” and the tweets made containing the images of Boy A and Boy B and the accompanying captions. Mr. Rooney acknowledged that he owned the Twitter page in question, and he further took ownership of the tweets and accompanying images. This is confirmed in D/Garda McCarthy's statement of the 16th of July 2019; and a memorandum of interview compiled by D/Garda McCarthy was provided in evidence to the court below, and to this Court.
In respect of Mr. Corcoran, the prosecution case alleges the following. At 2:14pm on the 19th of June 2019, a tweet posted by user “ Declan Corcoran @declan_corcoran” on Twitter, in reply to other users, purported to specifically identify Boy A and Boy B by name. It stated:
“[Names of Boy A and Boy B redacted] for anyone who doesn't know their names… … Sick murdering perverts”.
Garda Inspector Bróna O'Reilly (otherwise “Insp. O'Reilly”), in her statement dated the 30th of June 2019, averred that the names tweeted by user “ @declan_corcoran” corresponded with the names of Boy A and Boy B, and that this user had acted in breach of McDermott J.'s order and contrary to s. 252 of the Act of 2001. She further averred that “ @declan_corcoran” had replied to other tweets which identified Boy A.
In his statement dated the 10th of July 2019, a Garda Niall Carolan averred the following. Garda Carolan was a member involved in the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
DOE v Director of Public Prosecutions
...to be imposed were the particulars as alleged to be established at trial. (See generally Director of Public Prosecutions v. Doherty [2023] IECA 315). In appraising whether there is a realistic prospect of a custodial sentence in excess of twelve months, the District Court is required to tak......