DPP v Gill

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Court: Supreme Court
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1980
• Docket Number: [S.C. No. 64 of 1978]
• Date: 01 January 1980

(S.C.)

Director of Public Prosecutions

and

Gill

Time limit - Summary jurisdiction - Summons issued after expiration of time limit - Complainant not appearing on return day - Procedure - Adjournment - Rules of the District Court, 1948 (S.R. O. No. 431 of 1947), rr. 64, 83 - Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, 1851 (14 15 Vict. c. 93), s. 10, para. 4.

Section 10, para. 4, of the Act of 1851 states that in all cases of summary jurisdiction the complaint shall be made "within six months from the time when the cause of complaint shall have arisen but not otherwise." On the 7th June, 1977, the defendant appeared in the District Court pursuant to a summons which commanded him to so appear and to answer a complaint that on the 26th November 1976, he had committed a certain offence which was triable summarily. That summons was issued on the 29th March, 1977. Although the defendant appeared in the District Court on the 7th June, 1977, the complainant failed to appear on that occasion. An application by the defendant to have the complaint dismissed was refused by the District Justice, but he did not make any order. The complainant caused a second summons to be issued and it commanded the defendant to appear in the District Court on the 5th July, 1977, to answer a complaint that he had committed an offence described in the summons, being the offence which had been described in the first summons. At the hearing of the complaint on the 5th July, 1977, the District Justice held that both summonses referred to the same complaint and that it had been made within the period allowed by s. 10 of the Act...