Trial date of bus driver deferred

The trial of a Dublin bus driver charged in connection with the deaths of five people will not now go ahead as planned in July due to "genuine apprehension" on the part of his defence team that it will not be ready.

Kenneth Henvey, aged 48, Whitethorn Crescent, Clondalkin, is charged with dangerous driving causing the deaths of five people at Wellington Quay on February 21, 2004.

Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that Mr Henvey’s legal team has uncovered what he called "very, very specific technical leads into what might have caused the accident".

Mr O’Higgins told Judge Desmond Hogan that the new issues uncovered have to be investigated further and he did not feel that July 13, 2005, the scheduled date for the trial, gave the defence team enough time to do so.

He said that while Bus Atha Cliath had conducted a strong internal investigation involving substantial expertise into the accident, Mr Henvey’s legal team was also going to recruit the services of experts from the United Kingdom.

Mr O’Higgins further pointed out that a trial date had been sought for Mr Henvey unusually early in the process.

Mr Patrick McGrath BL, prosecuting, told Judge Hogan that the Director of Public Prosecutions was opposed to such an adjournment as "a considerable amount of effort" has been put into arranging for the 129 witnesses in the case to be available for the trial date.

Some of the witnesses, he said, were ambulance drivers and other medical personnel which meant hospital rosters and duty rotas had to be rearranged to suit the trial date.

"I am mindful of the fact that if this case had been dealt with in the normal way a trial date would not have been fixed so early in the process, " Judge Hogan said.

Acceding to the application to vacate the trial date, Judge Hogan said the case should be mentioned in court again on May 25, 2005. "It is up to the defence then to fix a trial date or not on that day," he said.