Mick Clifford: A mother's quest for justice could minimise trauma for other families
Lucia O’Farrell, with a picture of her son, Shane O’Farrell, who was killed in a hit-and-run in 2011. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie
The wheel of justice turns slowly, and sometimes a destination cannot be reached. This week, the Department of Justice published the report into the scoping inquiry into matters concerning the death of Shane O’Farrell.
The publication may well signal the end of the road after a decade-long campaign by Shane’s family for a public inquiry.Â
The author of the report, retired judge Gerard Haughton, recommends that no inquiry is warranted. His report is detailed, analytical and has, in places, caused further pain to the O’Farrell family.
Intruding on the family’s grief was obviously unintentional on the author’s part, but his narrative suggests he felt compelled to fully set out details of Shane’s death in the context of explaining how he arrived at his conclusions.
The O’Farrells intend to fight on. They do not accept that the report is complete and claim it is inaccurate in some respects. Whether their campaign can succeed in light of a scoping report finding there was no case to advance in that manner remains to be seen.
What is beyond doubt is that the family’s tireless work, particularly by Shane’s mother, Lucia, has shone a light on how the State has been negligent in responding to the needs of bereaved citizens seeking justice through courts of one sort or another.
Shane O’Farrell died when he was struck by a car while out cycling near his home in Carrickmacross on August 2, 2011. He was 23, had just completed final year law exams, and was full of life.
The driver, a Lithuanian man Zigimantas Gridziuska, failed to stop and didn’t return to his home until the following morning. He had been on bail for a number of offences at the time and had repeatedly broken bail conditions.
The O’Farrell family firmly believes that if the law had taken the course it is designed to take, Gridziuska would have been in prison at the time of the collision with Shane.
He was subsequently charged with dangerous driving causing death but the trial judge directed the jury to acquit. Eventually, he agreed to leave the State in lieu of serving prison sentences for some of the offences which were crime and theft related.
Deeply unhappy with the circumstances of the case and the outcome, Lucia O’Farrell set about researching in depth Gridziuska’s history of engagement with the gardaà and the courts. She found a number of inconsistencies and her work also suggested that various agencies and State departments would have preferred if she just went away.
What she uncovered was embarrassing for the functioning of the criminal justice system. The man in question did break bail conditions, he appeared in court on occasion when his history of lawbreaking was not made known to the judge, and he even managed to avoid serving a prison sentence imposed by the court.
Eventually, the case arrived in the Oireachtas where both houses voted in 2019 for the establishment of a public inquiry. The Government responded by setting up a scoping exercise, to be conducted by Mr Haughton, to examine whether a full inquiry was warranted. The journey from appointment to publication of the report took four years when it was expected to be a matter of months.
The report sets out the circumstances of the accident, in which despite cycling at night time there were “neither front nor rear lights” on the bicycle and Shane was wearing dark clothes. For this and other reasons, Mr Haughton agreed with the judge’s direction in the criminal trial.
However, Mr Haughton does point out that a lacuna in the law here has not been dealt with by the Oireachtas for 60 years. When a judge directs a jury to return a not-guilty verdict on dangerous driving causing death, it is not open for a less charge of careless driving to be entered and decided on.
In this case, for instance, a jury may well have concluded that Gridziuska was guilty of a lesser charge. The persistence of this failure in updating the law has, in all likelihood, affected other cases apart from this down through the decades, causing needless pain to victims or their bereaved loved ones.
Mr Haughton made recommendations about bringing clarity to activating suspended sentences and bail conditions. He also highlighted serious deficiencies in processes around coroner’s courts which have been the subject of repeated criticism over the years. In the end, however, he didn’t deem it necessary to conduct a full inquiry. He wrote:Â
The O’Farrell family disagrees with Mr Haughton on a number of points, and believes that aspects of the case have not been dealt with sufficiently. Lucia O’Farrell says the evidence that she has assembled can discredit the findings of this scoping report.
In reality, unless it is shown that the report’s author made some serious errors or omissions that would fundamentally change the whole character of his analysis, it is unlikely that any government would sanction advancing to a full public inquiry.
There was cross-party support for the O’Farrells in their endeavors before the scoping exercise began. Since its publication this week, Cavan-Monaghan Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy has called for a public inquiry to be conducted, as per the Oireachtas motion in 2019. His position on same should Sinn Féin be in the next government will be interesting to observe.
The last 12 years have been a painful journey for Lucia O’Farrell and her family. Their intended destination was a full public inquiry into the circumstances around Shane’s death, but the scoping exercise report has dealt a major blow to the prospect of ever arriving there.
However, the work done to make their case has contributed to the criminal and civil justice systems in other ways. The Government is now obliged to follow through on Mr Haughton’s recommendations to ensure that the systems act according to design.
More significantly, the family’s work has led to an amendment to road traffic laws in which a new category of indictable offence has been created for leaving the scene of an injury or death, with the inclusion of increased penalties.
“The O’Farrell family deserve great praise for this much-needed amendment to the road traffic legislation,” Mr Haughton wrote.
That will be of cold comfort. But while, certainly so far, they have not achieved what they believe would be justice for Shane O’Farrell, his family’s deep questioning of, and research into, the State may well ensure that others will not have to endure the same level of trauma that was visited on them.
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