Regional disparity in rates of conviction revealed

Defendants appearing before the Circuit Criminal Courts in Dublin are nearly three times more likely to be convicted than those appearing before the courts in the regions, new figures from the Courts Service have revealed.

The service's annual report, published in Dublin yesterday, has also revealed those convicted in the regions have a much better chance of escaping imprisonment.

Forty three per cent of all defendants convicted before the Circuit Criminal Courts in the regions got a suspended sentence last year. In Dublin, 31 per cent received a suspended sentence.

In the regions, 11 per cent of cases that went to trial resulted in an acquittal but this figure was just 3 per cent in Dublin.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell cautioned against extrapolating too much from the different acquittal and sentencing trends.

"For instance, it may be that different kinds of cases are fought in Dublin," he said. "It may be that the District Court judiciary may refuse jurisdiction in cases in some parts of the country in circumstances where they wouldn't in other places.

"I don't really believe that juries in Ireland vary regionally very substantially in their understanding of the issues before them or in their disposition to acquit.

"Every jury takes an oath to decide a case on the basis of the evidence before it and I have no reason to believe people take a different attitude to that oath in a different part of the country."

A number of factors influenced sentencing, including the seriousness of crime, the prevalence of crime and the capacity of the probation service "to keep people on the straight and narrow" in different cases.

"Whilst there is meat and drink in this [ report] for people to reflect on, and I'm not discounting it at all, I do believe we should not draw facile conclusions."

The report also reveals that the increase in murder, rape and sexual assault detections across the country in recent years is now filtering through to a greater number of these trials coming before the courts.

Last year the number of new murder cases received by the Central Criminal Court for trial increased by 25 per cent to 35 cases. The number of new rape and sexual assault cases received by the court increased by 10 per cent to 44 cases.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre welcomed the 10 per cent increase.

Chief executive Ellen O'Malley-Dunlop also welcomed news that the timescale from reporting to court appearance in rape cases is down from two years to six months.

However, she added: "Our adversarial system, to date, has not in any way encouraged reporting."

Labour's spokesman on justice Brendan Howlin TD expressed concern at the serious crime figures. He described them as alarming when viewed in light of the negligible 1 per cent decrease in headline crime for the first half of the year announced last week.

"The basic message is that serious offences such as murder and rape have now become features of life in modern Ireland," he said. Mr Howlin said some of the statistics in the report relating to increased marriage break-up and to substantially more children being taken into care, needed further exploration.

Divorce and judicial separation applications received by the courts increased to 5,833 from 4,616 in 2004.

The number of care orders granted to the Health Service Executive (HSE) in respect of children increased by more than 100 per cent to 975, from 411. Supervision orders granted to the HSE increased to 372, from 273 in 2004.

Last year was the first in which the full impact was felt in the courts of the personal injury assessment board, which deals with most personal injuries as an alternative to such cases going to court.