A Supreme Court decision clarifying the powers of the District Courts to issue search warrants has cast doubt on the prosecution in Britain of a Co Clare man and others on charges arising from an alleged £100 million VAT fraud.
Because the District Judge in question was sitting in Dublin and not in the three districts which included the premises to be searched, the Supreme Court overturned 11 of 12 warrants issued to the Criminal Assets Bureau to search the home and premises of Mr Dylan Creaven and the offices of an accountant.
Because the warrants were invalidly issued, the court also directed that all documents seized - many of which the British authorities had hoped to use in criminal proceedings - be returned to their owners and not the CAB.
The court was also strongly critical yesterday of the refusal of the CAB and the Chief State Solicitor's office to provide copies of documents used to ground the application for the search warrants to solicitors for Mr Creaven.
The legal proceedings arose after the arrest of Mr Creaven in London on November 19th, 2002.
After being in custody for almost a year, he is now on bail on VAT fraud charges which, it is claimed, involved the movement of computer parts between companies to generate VAT payments which were not declared to the British authorities. Mr Creaven and his companies deny the claims.
The day before Mr Creaven's arrest, District Judge David Anderson issued 12 search warrants. Five were issued under section 55 of the Criminal Justice Act 1994 and authorised searches of Mr Creaven's home and three premises. The other seven were issued under section 14 of the Criminal Assets Bureau Act 1996.
Mr Creaven and two of his companies challenged the validity of all 12 warrants in the High Court.
Last February, the court struck down the five section 55 warrants after finding the British authorities had failed to adhere to British law when seeking those warrants, but it upheld the validity of the section 14 warrants.
In an appeal at the Supreme Court in July, Mr Creaven argued the High Court was wrong not to also quash the section 14 warrants while in a cross-appeal, CAB and the State challenged the High Court on the section 55 warrants.
In its reserved judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court's quashing of the section 55 warrants and allowed Mr Creaven's appeal on the section 14 warrants, quashing six of seven. It dismissed the cross-appeal and adjourned to November 26th.
When the warrants were issued, Judge Anderson was sitting in the Dublin Metropolitan District. He was assigned as a judge to sit temporarily in that district. All but one of his warrants related to premises outside the Dublin Metropolitan District.
The District Court president made orders assigning Judge Anderson temporarily to three other districts which included the premises which CAB wished to search.
The issue was whether Judge Anderson had jurisdiction to issue the section 14 warrants in circumstances where he had been assigned to more than one district and where he was not in the relevant district, except in the case of the one warrant issued in the Dublin Metropolitan District.
In his judgment, with which all other four judges agreed, Mr Justice Fennelly said Judge Anderson was not sitting in three of the four districts in respect of which he issued warrants, which offended against the principle that the District Court should exercise jurisdiction by reference to districts.
