A convicted sex offender has challenged the Legal Aid Board’s refusal to support his defence of civil proceedings brought against him by his victim.
The High Court action is by 77-year-old John Barrow, who in 2017 was given a six-year prison sentence, with the final two years suspended, by the Circuit Criminal Court after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage boy. The assaults occurred on dates between 1989 and 1990 after Barrow had befriended the boy by offering him free flying lessons.
Barrow denied the charges, but in 2019, the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction. After the trial, Barrow’s victim, now aged in his 40s, initiated a civil action against him, seeking damages for assault, battery, trespass to the person and false imprisonment.
Barrow, a retired engineer,who has completed his custodial sentence, applied in 2018 to the Legal Aid Board seeking legal aid for the civil action. He claims he does not have the means to pay lawyers to defend him in that action.
The board turned down his application on grounds including Barrow not having a reasonable prospect of defending the civil proceedings as he was convicted of an offence in a criminal trial where the burden of proof is much higher.
However, he claims issues such as alleged delay by his victim in issuing the civil proceedings should have been considered by the board but were not.
Late last year, following correspondence with the Board, where he raised the issues of delay, he made what he believed was a fresh application for legal aid. He was informed by the board last February it could not accept applications for the same matter where a refusal had already been made.
The board disputed there had been any agreement about it reconsidering his application. He claims the refusal is flawed in his judicial review action against the Board.
Barrow, of High Road, Annagry, Co Donegal and Upper Mell, Drogheda, Co Louth seeks orders quashing the refusal last February to consider his application for Civil Legal Aid.
Represented by Siobhán Phelan SC, Barrow also seeks an order compelling the board to consider and determinate his application for civil legal aid based on fuller and more complete consideration.
By failing to accept and consider his application for legal aid, the board fettered its discretion and failed to vindicate his rights in accordance with the requirements of constitutional justice, he claims.
There is no legal impediment to the board considering a repeat or fresh application for civil legal aid, he claims. In refusing to consider his new application, the board erred in law and has acted unreasonably and irrationally and in breach of his rights under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights, he claims.
When the matter came before Mr Justice Charles Meenan on Monday, the judge, on an ex parte basis, granted permission to bring the action and returned it to June.