Court of Appeal dismisses appeal regarding stay of prosecution and joinder of DPP after conviction occurred.

An Chúirt Achomhairc

The Court of Appeal

Appeal number: 322 of 2023

Neutral Citation Number [2025] IECA 238 Charleton J McCarthy J Allen J

Between

Linda Rogers Applicant/Appellant

AND

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Lorcan Cowen, Sonia Buggy, Adrian O’Reilly, Adrian Kildea, Dave Freeman, Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform and District Judge John Hughes Respondents

Ex Tempore Judgment of the Court delivered by Mr Justice Charleton, 16 October 2025

1. This series of cases commenced with some events in Store Street Garda Station on 15 March 2023. The first thing I want to say is that I want to make it absolutely plain and clear that the Court is taking absolutely no view of any kind whatsoever in relation to anything that may or may not have happened there, any allegation that has been made in relation to anything that has happened there, any charges that resulted, or any court order of conviction which resulted from that. That was the date of 15 March 2023.

2. That case was apparently listed for hearing in the District Court in November of 2023, which is that same year, and on the day before there was an application in the High Court for leave to bring judicial review proceedings to stop the prosecution against Ms Rogers in relation to the alleged offences which allegedly occurred in Store St Garda Station on 15 March 2023. That ex parte application was heard in the High Court by Hyland J, and she was of the view that perhaps it was the case that the Director of Public Prosecutions ought to be heard and therefore she adjourned it to 12 December 2023.

3. It is important in the context of the chronology that has developed in relation to this case that we focus on the fact that what is in issue on this appeal, before this Court, are the orders made by Hyland J on 13 November 2023. What the High Court was asked to do was to stop the prosecution imminent in the District Court against Ms Rogers, you can describe that as an injunction application, but the normal way that you describe that kind of application when it is a judicial review and when it is a criminal case is as an application for an order that prosecution be stayed.

4. The orders that the High Court made on that day by Hyland J, were, number one, to join the Director of Public Prosecutions, and number two, to refuse a stay on the basis that the criminal trial was imminent, reasoning that criminal trials in this country are generally fair, that an appeal was an adequate remedy (by way of a full re-hearing in the Circuit Court, in the event of a conviction), further, in the event that, and this was in a state of play when Ms Rogers application was put forward asserting that there might be problems with the trial, but if there were problems with the trial, as everyone knows in this country, when you are convicted in the District Court you have a complete rehearing in the Circuit Court once you apply for it. So, the High Court refused to stay the trial in the District Court.

5. So that is what in fact is before us: an appeal from the High Court to this Court asserting that the Director of Public Prosecutions should not have been joined and that a stay should have been granted in respect of the criminal trial in the District Court. Now it is important to say that the core of this appeal is mootness: a court cannot change anything that happened once it has happened already in terms of facts, and from the papers and from submissions that we have heard, it is clear that the prosecution took place in relation to events in Store St Garda Station on 15 March 2023.

6. That prosecution was heard in the District Court over three days, 29, 30 and 31 January. The result of that was that the appellant, Ms Rogers, was convicted on 1 February on two counts of essentially public order-type offences, and a sentence of 3 months in custody was imposed, but it was suspended on the basis of a list of conditions, the list of conditions are set out in the judgment of Ms Justice Hyland dealing with the substantive matter when an application to overturn that conviction was made to the High Court after the conviction in the District Court. Leave to commence judicial review was refused in the High Court. That case is not before us and was already appealed to this Court and was refused. In addition, Ms Rogers has appealed the conviction and is entitled to a re-hearing before the Circuit Court. That would have been disposed of by now but has been held up by this final appeal in a series of applications.

7. Today we are asked, because this is an appeal from the order of Hyland J of 13 November 2023, to say that the Director of Public Prosecutions should not have been joined. That is the first point, so let me deal with that first. The Director of Public Prosecutions had to be joined because she was the party who was taking the prosecution and had charge of the prosecution, and no argument has been advanced to the effect that that joining would have been wrong. Secondly, we are asked to say that there should have been a stay on the criminal trial. But the criminal trial has now taken place and there is no basis in law whereby a stay can be granted in relation to something that has already happened. So that is an impossibility, so therefore the application has to be refused.

8. There are two other things that have to be added, because going further through the chronology of the appeal and further appeals perhaps only complicates matters and this is a very simple issue as to whether something happened in a Garda Station and whether that was wrong. There has been a conviction, but in the course of various judicial reviews taken by Ms Rogers, which are now exhausted because they have all been heard and judgments have been given, allegations have been made against various parties, who were named in court today.

9. I am not going to rename them, allegations were made on the basis that there was entrapment, that there was some kind of provocation, that court officers misbehaved themselves, that counsel on behalf of various parties misbehaved themselves. There is not the slightest evidence as to that. These allegations can easily be simply raised. There is nothing to say that anyone did something wrong. Secondly, it is alleged very forcibly by Ms Rogers that ordinary court procedures are turned by judges and court staff into some kind of an attack on Ms Rogers, an attack in personam, and what is mentioned by her in that regard is that instead of putting in an affidavit in reply, or on appeal, the Director of Public Prosecutions did not file an affidavit but simply put in a response to the appeal. That is completely normal in these kinds of proceedings, and it seems to us that nothing more needs to be said in relation to this case. I am reminded that this is the judgment of the Court.

10. Having heard submissions as to costs on this appeal, and it applies to this appeal only, the Court regards any award of costs as futile and an invitation to opening more issues and therefore refuses costs to the respondents.