IN HIS July 2007 judgment in the High Court Mr Justice Liam McKechnie said the infection of hundreds of people with hepatitis C from infected blood products had severely traumatised the lives of multiple families.
He detailed the steps taken from 1997 to investigate the matter following publication of the Finlay tribunal and complaints by members of the family of the late Brigid McCole and Positive Action.
He said investigating gardaí had to examine the Finlay report, some 27 days of evidence and the appropriate areas of criminal law which were involved. They had secured documents from the tribunal and from Positive Action, representing 750 people. A representative 73 people were selected for interview and that figure was later reduced by five.
Because of the complexity of the subject matter, its sensitivity and the apprehensions of victims, statements were not completed until summer 1998, with one statement coming in October 1998.
There were then meetings with GPs and hospital doctors who treated the women over several years. Some of these had understandable concerns about patient confidentiality and sought advice from the Medical Council.
Gardaí had also sought statements from medical experts here and in the United Kingdom. Mr Justice McKechnie said he fully accepted the gathering and assessment of this information was quite time consuming. Inquiries also had to be made of the Blood Transfusion Service Board and it in turn had to consult lawyers. In all, 382 witness statements were taken.
The Garda file was ultimately sent to the DPP in October 1999, he said. He was satisfied the Garda response to this unfolding tragedy was “exemplary”, was carried out with “the thoroughness required” and as speedily as possible. There was “no delay of any description” on the part of the Garda.
However, after the file was sent to the DPP in October 1999, there was “a period of some 15/16 months of blameworthy prosecutorial delay for which no reasonable explanation had been offered”, the judge found.
From October 1999 until Ms Cunningham was charged on July 23rd, 2003, there were lengthy periods of inaction for which no worthwhile explanation was given, even allowing for legal consultations, clarifications from gardaí and other matters.
While a different professional official in the DPP’s office had taken over the file in 2001, this was not an adequate explanation for a delay of some seven or eight months that year when, the judge suspected, “little was done”. Allowing for the number of persons and technical matters involved and the medical input, there were no matters of substance that explained delays of some 15/16 months in the period from October 1999 – when most of the “technical work” had been done – to July 2003, he said.
Legal consultations and advices were sought but these related to relatively minor matters and should have been dealt with in a much shorter period of time. The file was with the DPP’s office for “an excessive period” and the explanations offered did not provide a legal justification for that.
However, Mr Justice McKechnie went on, it did not automatically follow the court must stop the trial. He had to balance the right to a speedy trial and the stress and anxiety caused to Ms Cunningham by the delay with the public right to have a trial on a serious charge brought to finality.
In this case, along with his finding that Ms Cunningham had failed to establish any specific pre-judice to her right to a fair trial, he had no doubt the public right prevailed.
Earlier, rejecting Ms Cunningham’s claims that her right to a fair trial was prejudiced by proposed reliance on certain documents and expert statements, the judge said the issues raised as to the admissibility of evidence were a matter for a trial judge.