DPP v W
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | O'Donnell J.,McKechnie J.,Finlay Geoghegan J. |
| Judgment Date | 06 July 2018 |
| Neutral Citation | [2018] IESCDET 99 |
| Docket Number | 2013 No. 225 |
| Court | Supreme Court |
| Date | 06 July 2018 |
[2018] IESCDET 99
2013 No. 225
THE SUPREME COURT
DETERMINATION
| ORDER SOUGHT TO BE APPEALED |
| COURT: Court of Appeal |
| DATE OF ORDER: 1st June, 2017 |
| DATE OF JUDGMENT: 1st June, 2017 |
| DATE OF PERFECTION OF ORDER: 10th August, 2017 |
| THE APPLICATION FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL WAS MADE ON THE 5TH SEPTEMBER, 2017, AND WAS IN TIME. |
This determination relates to an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court from a judgment of the Court of Appeal (Ryan P., Edwards and Hedigan JJ.) delivered on the 1st June, 2017, and from the resulting Order of that Court made on the same date and perfected on the 10th August, 2017.
Mr M.W., referred to in this Determination as ‘the accused’ or ‘the applicant’, seeks leave to appeal to this Court from the said judgment and Order of the Court of Appeal. The Director of Public Prosecutions, who opposes the application, is referred to in this Determination as ‘the DPP’ or ‘the respondent’.
The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to hear appeals is set out in the Constitution. As is clear from the terms of Article 34.5.3° thereof and from the many determinations made by this Court since the enactment of the Thirty-third Amendment, it is necessary, in order for this Court to grant leave to appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal, that it be established by the applicant that the decision sought to be appealed involves a matter of general public importance, or that it is otherwise necessary in the interests of justice that there be an appeal to this Court.
The general principles applied by this Court in determining whether to grant or refuse leave to appeal having regard to the criteria incorporated into the Constitution as a result of the Thirty-third Amendment have now been considered in a large number of determinations and are fully addressed in both a determination issued by a panel consisting of all of the members of this Court in B.S. v. Director of Public Prosecutions [2017] IESC DET. 134 and in a unanimous judgment of a full Court delivered by O'Donnell J. in Price Waterhouse Cooper (A Firm) v. Quinn Insurance Ltd. (Under Administration) [2017] I.E.S.C. 73. It follows that it is unnecessary to revisit the new constitutional architecture for the purposes of this determination.
It should be noted that any ruling in a determination is between the parties. It is final and conclusive as far as the parties are concerned, and is a decision in relation to that application only. The issue determined on the application for leave is whether the facts and legal issues meet the constitutional criteria to enable this Court to hear an appeal. It will not, save in the rarest of circumstances, be appropriate to rely on a refusal of leave as having a precedential value in relation to the substantive issues in the context of a different case. Where leave is granted, any issue canvassed in the application will in due course be disposed of in the substantive decision of the Court.
The full facts and background of the case are more fully recited in the judgment of the Court of Appeal and in the parties' respective documents on this application for leave. Accordingly, what is presented here is a brief summary for contextual purposes only.
Trial and Conviction
On the 2nd July, 2013, following a three-day trial, the accused was convicted by the majority verdict of a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of a single count of assault causing harm, contrary to section 3 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.
The offence in question was alleged to have been committed on the 4th January, 2012, at the ‘Busy Bees’ crèche in Stillorgan, Dublin 14. One of the children then attending the crèche was R, the son of the accused and his former partner, Ms O. On the day before the incident, Ms O had written to the owner and manager, a Ms Marian Wallace, to revoke the accused's permission to take R from the crèche. The accused maintained at trial that he did not receive any notice of this revocation until the 6th January. In any event, on the day in question, the accused arrived at the crèche to collect his child. There was much contest at trial as to the precise manner in which events unfolded thereafter, but what is clear is that the crèche staff's refusal to allow R to leave with the accused led to an altercation between the accused and the staff, particularly Ms Wallace. She gave evidence at trial that, following heated verbal exchanges, the accused threatened her and then headbutted her in the face, causing her to suffer a broken nose. Another staff member also testified to having witnessed this headbutt, and other crèche employees gave evidence as to the accused's violent and aggressive behaviour around the time of the incident.
The accused gave evidence at trial and vigorously rejected this account. He acknowledged that there was a tense atmosphere owing to what he perceived to be an illegal refusal to allow him to collect his child. However, on his version of events the complainant and another member of staff had assaulted him, causing him to lose his balance and collide with Ms Wallace, thereby accidentally inflicting the injury. This case was put to the prosecution witnesses on cross-examination, and they were also questioned at length about alleged inconsistencies in their evidence.
Ultimately, as above noted, the jury found the accused guilty of assault causing harm to Ms Wallace. He received a sentence of three years' imprisonment, suspended for three years, in respect of the said offence.
The Court of Appeal
The accused appealed his conviction and sentence to the Court of Appeal. He raised ten grounds in his amended, consolidated Notice of Appeal. The only grounds of continuing relevance to this application are Grounds 1, 2 and 3, which related to a failure to disclose to the defence certain statements made by the complainant and other crèche staff, as well as other alleged failures in the Garda investigation.
The essence of these grounds was that Ms Wallace and her staff had made statements for the crèche's own file on the day of the incident and that these statements had not been disclosed to the accused until some time after his trial. He further complained that two statements made by Ms Wallace in relation to another incident involving the accused at the crèche should...
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Michael Waters v The Commissioner of an Garda Síochána
...IECA 175. An application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was refused on 6 July 2018: Director of Public Prosecutions v W. [2018] IESCDET 99. The applicant remained aggrieved as to the manner in which disclosure had been made in the context of the proceedings before the Circuit Cour......