A HIGH Court judge has criticised An Garda Síochána over failing to take immediate action after an Irish doctor absconded while on bail pending the outcome of his appeal against his extradition to the US on child molestation charges.
Rory Doyle, also known as David West, has not been located.
Mr Justice Michael Peart made his comments after ordering forfeiture to the State of €100,000 put up as an independent surety when Rory Doyle was granted bail, plus Dr Doyle’s own surety of €25,000.
Dr Doyle, who changed his name to David West by deed poll in 2004, absconded before the Supreme Court heard his appeal against an order for his extradition. His whereabouts are unknown. In a ruling ordering that the €125,000 bail be forfeited, the judge said the case raised a “serious defect in the system”, which those in authority needed to address.
In January 2010 the High Court ordered Dr Doyle be surrendered to Florida, where he is wanted on three charges of child molestation and a fourth of failing to turn up for his trial on those charges in November 2001. Dr Doyle denied the charges, including molestation of two girls (then aged 13 and eight) while they were asleep.
The offences are alleged to have occurred at Treasure Island, Florida, between September 1994 and February 1995, and at St Petersburg, Florida, in July 2000.
The appeal by Dr Doyle (56), with addresses at Donnybrook Manor, Belmont Avenue, Donnybrook, Dublin, and Sallins Bridge, Sallins, Co Kildare, against his extradition was listed before the Supreme Court last February.
After his arrest in 2009, he was on bail subject to conditions requiring him to surrender his passport, reside in Donnybrook, enter into his own bond of €25,000 and provide an independent surety of €100,000. The surety was put up by his mother Maura Doyle (89), with whom he lived in Donnybrook.
In December 2011 Dr Doyle was granted the return of his passport to allow him go to England with his mother for a week at Christmas. He was excused from signing on from December 21st to 29th. Mr Justice Peart said Mrs Doyle spent the holidays in a Cork hotel. She returned home on December 29th to find her son had gone. When he had not returned by January 2nd last, she phoned Donnybrook Garda station and was assured the matter would be followed up, the judge noted.
Gardaí called to her home on January 27th and a warrant was issued for her son’s arrest.
Mr Justice Peart said the Garda extradition unit was not informed Dr Doyle had not signed on from December 29th onwards as required, and nothing was done until almost a month later. There seemed to be no system to immediately notify those in charge of the extradition case that a person failed to sign on, he said.
There was no useful purpose to signing on as a condition of bail “if a failure to comply triggers no alarm of any kind”, he said. This could result in a person subject to bail conditions having fled the jurisdiction and making “a mockery of the process by which bail is applied for and granted”.
What happened “points up a serious defect” and “reflects badly on Ireland”, he added.
Those with the ability to address this issue should do so without delay, the judge urged. There had been “an enormous waste” of State resources in this case.
The judge said he had no doubt Dr Doyle had “manipulated and used” his mother in a “callous fashion” by involving her as an independent surety. That money was her life’s savings and she was “blameless” in her son’s absconding.