School teacher acquitted of abusing children entitled to have defamation case before jury

A national school teacher who was acquitted of sexually abusing three pupils and who has been reinstated in his post is entitled to have his defamation proceedings against the HSE heard by a jury, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Mr Justice Gerard Hogan, with Mr Justice Michael Peart and Ms Justice Mary Irvine concurring, ruled that the High Court "simply has no jurisdiction to dilute the plaintiff's right to a jury trial" for the defamation action.

Earlier this year, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy had found the right to a trial by jury in defamation cases was “not an absolute one”. He directed, in a decision on case management, that the teacher’s defamation case should be heard together or successively with a judicial review also being taken by him.

In June 2004, the teacher, who cannot be named, was placed on administrative leave following a complaint from a parent alleging their child was inappropriately touched.

Three trials

Two further complaints were made against the teacher involving two other children and the matters went to trial. Three trials were held, two in 2009 and one in 2010.

The teacher was acquitted of all the charges against him. A subsequent HSE investigation, concluded in December 2012, was “inconclusive”.

The teacher resumed teaching in 2013, having agreed to allow CCTV cameras to be installed in the classroom and to have the door of the room kept open while he taught.

He initiated judicial review proceedings against the HSE investigation into him in mid- 2013, claiming it was seriously flawed. In November 2013, he took defamation proceedings.

He alleged a social worker had spoken with parents of children attending the school where he worked between December 2012 and June 2013 who said he was a threat to children and should not have been permitted to return to work.

In the Court of Appeal ruling, Mr Justice Hogan acknowledged that case-management decisions “should but rarely be upset on appeal”. He also said the entitlement to trial by jury for defamation proceedings presented “considerable practical problems”, but he did not believe any pre-existing right to trial by jury “should yield to the demands of case management and the efficient operation of the administration of justice”.

Common law

He said the right to a jury trial in defamation proceedings was allowed in common law and expressly preserved in the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1877. It had never been diluted in any way by any subsequent legislation, the judge said.

Mr Justice Hogan also said two other judgments, in Kerwick vs Sunday Newspapers and in Bradley vs Maher, that suggested the High Court had the jurisdiction to create an exception to the right, "were wrongly decided and should not be followed".

“The High Court simply has no jurisdiction to create what in effect would amount to a discretionary exception to this common law right which has been copper-fastened by legislation, even if this was done for the very understandable reasons of efficiency and case management,” he said.