Harbison’s illness ‘will affect few cases’

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell will meet with State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy in the coming days to discuss the difficulties raised by the illness of her predecessor, Prof John Harbison.

However, Mr McDowell told the Dáil last night he did not believe that many cases would be affected by Prof Harbison’s condition.

On Monday, the DPP dropped the manslaughter retrial of Dermot Laide in connection with the death of teenager Brian Murphy outside a Dublin nightclub in 2000.

Prof Harbison’s illness meant he was unavailable to testify in the retrial after a conflict had arisen between his evidence in the original trial and a new report by Dr Cassidy.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte repeatedly raised the issue in the Dáil in the past two days, saying that while it was a sensitive matter, it was vital to know how many other cases could be affected.

On Tuesday night, the Department of Justice issued a statement on the matter, saying Prof Harbison had retired in January 2003 when he was about 68 years of age, and performed no new autopsies after that time.

Until recently, he continued to give evidence in pre-2003 cases, being lucid at all times, the department said.

Mr McDowell added to that last night, saying: “My department has no way of determining how many cases may be outstanding as the bringing of prosecutions, retrials and the like is entirely the remit of the DPP.

"But, given that Prof Harbison has not performed any new post mortems for over three years, it seems reasonable to infer that there is no significant number of current cases, at any rate, still awaiting trial.”

Out of deference to Prof Harbison’s privacy, he did not wish to comment specifically on the implications of his illness.

However, he said the impact of non-availability of an expert or other witness at a trial gave rise to a broad range of issues of very general application.

It had been suggested that, in future, State pathologists would work in pairs to allow for a fall-back witness in the event of one not being available.

But while that system was worth considering, he stressed: “There are significant logistical and efficiency considerations which would have to be reviewed if we were to routinely double up in the assignment of expert witnesses across the board.”

He would raise these issues with Dr Cassidy in the coming days “and explore carefully the various options which might be open to us”.

He said arrangements were already under way to improve her office and laboratory facilities and to make available a driver service for when she and her assistants are on-call.