Call to slash waiting times for murder and rape cases

The length of time taken to bring a person charged with murder or rape to court should be cut in half, a new report has found.

A study revealed it takes almost 21 months or 90 weeks from the time of initial arrest until a murder case trial begins.

In general rape cases were found to take almost 27 months or 118 weeks to reach trial.

The study from the National Crime Council recommended all murder cases should begin within 12 months of the defendant’s initial arrest, and the time should be lowered to just over a year for rape cases.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said it welcomed the report’s recommendation of cutting the length of time taken by 50%.

“The report highlighted the fact that in rape cases it took 118 weeks from arrest to start of trial. This is over two years and it is one of the big deterrents in non-reporting of rape and sexual assault, a fact that has been known to us for a very long time,” Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop of the centre said.

The centre said a time schedule should have been included for the implementation of the recommendations.

Researchers found cases took significantly longer in Ireland at 71 weeks, than in England and Wales at 26 weeks, or the North at 15 weeks to progress between the defendant being returned for trial and the first main hearing.

One of the reasons found in the research for trials not commencing as scheduled was that no court was available.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell said action had been taken to tackle the delay by the court system in dealing with cases.

“With a greater number of judges and jury courts, and the commencement of out of Dublin trials in appropriate cases, the waiting list in the Central Criminal Court has now been reduced from 18 months to around seven to eight months,” he said.

“I intend to confer with the President of the High Court in relation to the steps, including the appointment of further judges, that can now be taken with a view to reducing that figure to a period of not more than three to four months.”

The Court Service said the current average waiting time from a case being listed before the Central Criminal Court and the trial going to hearing is now between 16 to 20 weeks. This is down from almost a two year waiting time a number of years ago.

The council examined over 300 murder and rape cases disposed of by the Central Criminal Court between 2002 and 2004.

It was found in most rape cases the suspect was arrested but not charged until eight months later.

“While that in particular may reflect the nature of the offence involved and the particular dynamics of murder and rape cases, from the point of view of the families of murder victims and the point of view of rape victims the delays of the kind that are typical in Ireland are simply unacceptable,” Mr McDowell said.

“In the meetings with professionals, it became apparent that the limited availability of sexual assault units outside of Dublin could have implications for the length of time it takes to complete a rape/sexual assault investigation,” the report stated.

“The council recommends that the Department of Health and Children open additional sexual assault units in major regional hospitals.”

Mr McDowell said he accepted the conclusions of the report that time management and compliance with specific targets must be made an integral part of the criminal justice system.

“This will require significant changes in the way An Garda Siochana works, in the way the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution works and in the way that these two agencies interact with each other,” he said.

The minister said the appointment of senior administrative civilian staff to take on the management of criminal investigations was being discussed between the Department and the Garda Commissioner.

“The Supreme Court has identified delay in prosecution of trial as a ground militating in favour of granting bail in serious cases. Society has a major interest in addressing this issue investigative and administrative delay,” he said.