The Supreme Court has stopped the further prosecution of a 32-year-old man for alleged sexual abuse of his sister on grounds of the nature of the offences and "inordinate" delay in bringing them to trial,
Giving the court's decision, the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Keane, said the greater part of the delay of which the man had complained occurred before he was charged with any offence. It was reasonable to infer that the man was subjected to anxiety and concern from the time the investigation began in 1991.
Mr Justice Keane said the delay in making the complaint was not solely due to the inaction of the man's sister.
Although gardaí were fully aware of the allegations in 1992, the woman was reluctant to make a complaint until April 1998. The man was not charged until May 25th 1999, and the file was not sent to the DPP until December 1999.
The "conduct" complained of began when the accused was nine years old and his sister seven. It began as a form of sexual experimentation between two children and continued for a relatively short time after the man had reached the age of adult responsibility.
There was no indication that the alleged activities had any significant long-term consequences for the woman in psychological terms, the Chief Justice said.
Mr Justice Keane said he was satisfied that the nature of the offences, coupled with inordinate and wholly unjustifiable delay in bringing them to trial, rendered this a case in which the constitutional right of the man to a reasonably expeditious trial outweighed any conceivable public interest there might be in the prosecution of the alleged offences.
In May 2001 the High Court refused to grant the man an order preventing his further prosecution. He then appealed to the Supreme Court.
During the High Court hearing the DPP said he was not proceeding with charges relating to the period when the man was under 14 years of age because of the presumption in Irish law at that time that a male under that age was incapable of sexual intercourse.
No explanation was given by the DPP why those charges were not dropped until the High Court hearing, Mr Justice Keane said.
The man was, however, also charged with offences of incest and indecent assault up to 1991.
The judge said that if the woman's complaint had been properly investigated in the period leading to the man's arrest, the DPP would have been aware of a "bewildering contradiction" between the man's alleged statement that intercourse with his sister continued until she was 19 years of age and the woman's own statement that it stopped at the latest when she was 12.
Mr Justice Keane said that the family GP had contacted a hospital in 1991 after the girl's mother informed him that she was concerned that the girl, then aged three, might have been sexually abused by her brother. A psychologist and social worker reported the findings of their inquiry to the Garda in January 1992.
A psychologist who interviewed the woman two years ago had found she had accurately anticipated her family's reaction to her making a statement to gardai. By that time she was no longer living in the family home and had a stable relationship with, and emotional support from, a boyfriend.
Her reason for making the complaint was her desire to save her younger sister from what she herself had suffered and not to maliciously get back at her brother.