DISTRESSED victims of criminal assaults and members of their families have begun writing to the Central Criminal Court to protest about delays in bringing their alleged attackers to trial, a judge said yesterday.
Mrs Justice McGuinness said that in the past few months a large number of the rape and murder cases listed for trial had been adjourned on the request of either the prosecution or defence. Cases which were not ready had been assigned trial dates for the period while there were other accused persons in custody wanting to get an earlier hearing.
"We have reached the situation that the court is receiving letters from parents, relatives and victims complaining of the delays", Mrs Justice McGuinness said.
She made her remarks when told that the trial of four men facing charges of aggravated sexual assault could not proceed on July 15th.
The case had been fixed for trial even though it was obviously not ready to proceed, she said.
A defence barrister told the court that he had only received the papers in the case in recent days. Following a consultation with three of the men it had become clear that he could only act for one of them. The other two would need to retain a separate solicitor and counsel. Much of the essential preparatory work in the case was also incomplete, he said.
In June, Mr Justice Geoghegan said late applications for adjournments were causing a "huge back-log" of trials in the Central Criminal Court.
He said it was "totally unacceptable" for solicitors and barristers to agree on a hearing date for a case weeks or months in advance, only to come to court shortly before the start of the trial to seek an adjournment.
Mr Justice Geoghegan noted that very few rape or murder trials had proceeded recently because a number of cases had been adjourned long after they had beef assigned hearing dates.