DPP must decide by January on Carmody retrial

THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions has been given a 3½-month deadline to decide if former doctor Paschal Carmody is to be retried on deception charges, otherwise the charges will be struck out.

At Ennis Circuit Court yesterday, Judge Carroll Moran granted an adjournment to State counsel Stephen Coughlan to allow the DPP more time to decide if Mr Carmody (60), Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, is to be retried on 11 deception-related charges.

Judge Moran granted the adjournment to January 12th peremptory against the State, meaning that if the DPP has not at that stage determined if there will be a retrial, the charges will be struck out.

Judge Moran made the adjournment peremptory in response to an application from Mr Carmody's solicitor, Michael Staines, who told the court that he expected a decision by the DPP for yesterday's court.

Mr Carmody and his wife, Dr Frieda Keane Carmody, were in court for yesterday's brief hearing.

At Ennis Circuit Court last July, after a four-week trial, a jury found Mr Carmody not guilty on six charges of obtaining money by deception from terminally ill cancer patients and failed to reach a verdict on the remaining 11 charges.

Trial judge Judge Rory McCabe had already directed the jury to return a not guilty verdict in relation to eight charges.

The outstanding 11 charges relate to €30,854 obtained from three terminally ill patients who received photodynamic therapy (PDT) at the East Clinic in Killaloe in 2001-2002.

The jury could not agree on any of the seven deception charges totalling €9,610 in relation to Co Wexford boy Conor O'Sullivan (14) who died in November 2002.

The DPP is to also decide if it is to press ahead with two outstanding charges in relation to €14,300 obtained from the family of Co Westmeath man JJ Gallagher who died in September 2002. Mr Carmody was cleared of obtaining €9,450 by deception from John Sheridan of Kells, Co Kilkenny, who died in November 2002. The DPP is to decide if it should press ahead with the remaining two charges relating to €6,944 obtained from Mr Sheridan and his family.

In response to a separate application from Mr Staines, Judge Moran also made an order to vary Mr Carmody's bail conditions to give him back his passport to allow him to go on holidays for three weeks in November.

The State consented to the application and Mr Carmody was remanded on continuing bail to reappear before the court on January 12th.