Judges criticise solicitors' withdrawing their services as trials adjourned
High Court Reporters
Two High Court judges have criticised solicitors' withdrawal of their services as they were forced to adjourn trials and sentencing matters involving child complainants and serious sexual offending.
On Tuesday, July 28th, Justice Paul McDermott was told that a new trial date needed to be set for a sexual abuse case involving a child complainant.
The court heard that the solicitor in the case withdrew their services on the original trial date in June. The child complainant is in counselling.
The trial had been otherwise ready to proceed, the court heard. McDermott set a new trial date for the autumn term, telling the court it would have to proceed on that day.
“This is a child in counselling and services were withdrawn despite that,” he said. “It's not going to happen on (the next trial date). You can't have a child in this position.”
McDermott was also due to hear a sentencing matter for a man who admitted a number of historic sexual offences earlier this year which have had “a significant effect” on the complainant.
The complainant had prepared their victim impact statement and was due to travel to court for the sentence hearing on Tuesday, July 28th, but was advised last night that it would not be going ahead due to the withdrawal of services.
McDermott said in his view, “you can't withdraw from a criminal case” and that “best practice requires that a matter be brought to conclusion.”
“I don't see how a lawyer can withdraw from a case on the cusp of finalisation,” he said. “But what's happened is that is the case. The solicitor hasn't attended today and the matter can't proceed.
“...When will the court be allowed to proceed to finalising the case? Let's say the dispute continues for a year. Will the court be expected to stay its hand for that long? I don't think so.”
He adjourned the sentence hearing to this Friday, saying “everyone involved in the case should be here.”
On Monday, Justice Tony Hunt was dealing with the Central Criminal Court list. At one point he described the situation as “intolerable” after a number of sexual assault cases on the list were affected by solicitors not instructing barristers.
This included the sentence hearing of a Meath defendant for the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old child in the mid-nineties. Prosecuting counsel told Hunt that both the defendant and the injured party were minors at the time and were children under the law.
Counsel told the court that the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had been contacted in advance of the hearing to say it would be affected by the “industrial action”.
Hunt said “We’ve been advised by email that services are withdrawn” before he asked the defendant, who was present in court on bail, “Did you know that?”. The man replied “yes” and counsel told the court that the defendant had pleaded guilty to a number of offences last April and it was adjourned to yesterday/Monday for a sentence hearing.
“I’m biting my lip very hard...I suppose we better fix a new date,” Hunt said. He put the case into October for a sentence hearing.
Hunt did finalise two sexual assault cases, both of which involved defendants in custody and for which defence solicitors were in attendance.
A number of pre-trial hearings, which deal with issues such as disclosure of evidence in advance of trials, were also affected. At one point Justice Hunt said he thought “it was three days this week where people were not working” and that solicitors would be attending on Monday.
“This is intolerable,” he said.
In another sexual assault case, which was listed for mention, counsel for the accused said he was instructed to bring an application to vary bail but was not otherwise instructed.
Hunt commented that it seemed to be a case of “Schrödinger's legal advisors” where solicitors were “present but not present at the same time”.
“It seems to me to be a lot of nonsense,” he said. Having noted that the DPP was accepting the application to vary bail he remanded the defendant on continuing bail to October.
