The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has been heavily criticised by a High Court judge who released a Romanian man after he spent 14 months in custody on a serious sex assault charge.
Mr Justice Barry White made his comments after he discharged a Central Criminal Court jury when the DPP entered a nolle prosequi in the case, which alleged the man committed aggravated sexual assault on a woman by humiliation in Fairview, Dublin, on December 25th, 1997.
The 32-year-old accused, who had been extradited from the UK in July 2002 to face the charge, was freed from the court after spending 14 months in custody here pending trial.
Mr Justice White told the jury that the accused had been questioned by gardaí shortly after the 52-year-old woman made her complaint and was released without being charged.
Some time later he had left the State after he had been savagely assaulted in his flat by masked individuals at the behest of the complainant.
Mr Justice White told the jurors that last February the prosecution informed the defence that the woman had made a similar complaint of sex assault on another occasion concerning another person. The DPP decided then not to proceed with that case. He said details were to be furnished to the defence in this case but these details were only handed to the defence lawyers and prosecuting counsel just before the trial was due to start on Tuesday morning.
Mr Justice White said that, as a result of the DPP's decision to proceed with the case, the man had spent 14 months in custody.