Paschal Carmody is refused legal costs against State

Former Co Clare GP Paschal Carmody, who claimed he had spent up to €3 million proving his innocence of charges of false pretences and deception, has been refused his legal costs against the State.

Mr Carmody (68), of Ballycuggeran, Killaloe, was struck off the medical register in 2004 after having been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Fitness to Practise Committee of the Medical Council.

Between 2008 and 2012 Mr Carmody’s legal team, led by Tom Creed SC and Frank Buttimer Solicitors, was successful in defending him against 25 separate charges of false pretences and deception in a number of trials.

High Court judge Mr Justice Raymond Fullam, a former Circuit Court judge who had dealt with Mr Carmody’s final trial, sat on Thursday as a judge of the Circuit Criminal Court to deliver his judgment.

Mr Justice Fullam, who retires on Friday, refused Mr Carmody his costs on the basis he had waited four years before applying for them and on grounds there was no authority by which the court could reopen an issue after a final order had been made.

Mr Justice Fullam told Denis Vaughan Buckley, for the State, that he would make no order for costs. The DPP had alleged Mr Carmody obtained substantial payments from two terminally ill cancer patients at his clinic in Co Clare by promising he would at best cure their cancer or at worst prolong their lives using a treatment called photodynamic therapy (PDT), the judge said.

Curing cancer

The 2012 trial was before Judge Fullam in Ennis Circuit Criminal Court over a period of eight days. When evidence was given on behalf of the DPP by Dr Colm Hopper that Mr Carmody truly believed in the efficacy of PDT in curing cancer, the judge said the accused lacked the requisite intent to establish the offences against him and ordered his acquittal.

It was the third trial Mr Carmody had faced. In July 2008, on 25 separate charges of false pretences and deception, Judge Rory MacCabe directed a not-guilty verdict on eight of them due to insufficient evidence. The jury subsequently found Carmody not guilty of six of them and disagreed on the remaining 11.

In the retrial of the outstanding 11 charges, Judge Donagh McDonagh ruled two would have to be heard separately and during the trial of the remaining nine he discharged the jury following the publication by The Irish Times and Irish Examiner of evidence heard in the absence of the jury.

Eventually, between the entry of nolle prosequis and judicial rulings, Mr Carmody was cleared of guilt with regard to every charge he had faced.

Mr Justice Fullam said the DPP, regarding the current costs application, had submitted that the court had no jurisdiction to hear an application for costs in circumstances where it had made and perfected its final order over four years ago. It was now functus officio and could not interfere with the final order made, no application for costs having been made on the day of the final acquittal.

The judge felt the DPP was correct in inferring that what was being sought by Mr Carmody was an amendment to the final order made by the Circuit Court on foot of the decision directing an acquittal in December 2012.

“The court will not depart from the view clearly expressed by McCracken J and Finlay CJ that there is no authority by which the court can reopen an issue after a final order has been made,” the judge said.