The DPP accepted "fully and ungrudgingly" that the former nun, Ms Nora Wall, and Mr Paul McCabe were entitled to be presumed innocent of all charges brought against them, the Court of Criminal Appeal was told yesterday.
Counsel for the DPP also said he had been instructed to say to the court that the DPP "very much regrets the errors which occurred in relation to the handling of this case by the prosecution". Those errors had led to the appeal court last July setting aside the convictions of Ms Wall and Mr McCabe for the rape of a 10-year-old girl in 1987-88.
The DPP, Mr James Hamilton, announced last week that he had decided not to seek a retrial in the case. In a report on the handling of the case, he explained how the prosecution came to call one witness, Ms Patricia Phelan, despite an earlier direction by the DPP, made in April 1997, that she should not be.
The report outlined the sequence of events from the decision to prosecute Ms Wall and Mr McCabe on April 24th, 1997, to their release by the Court of Criminal Appeal, initially on bail, in July last, just days after they had been sentenced by the Central Criminal Court to life and 12 years' imprisonment respectively.
When the case was called in the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, for the DPP, read a prepared statement.
He said the DPP had considered the evidence at the trial, together with additional information obtained by gardai, and had concluded that it would not be proper to proceed with his application for a retrial.
Mr Vaughan Buckey added: "I am instructed to emphasise that the Director's concern to defend the propriety of the decision to charge the two accused does not in any sense detract from the fact, which is fully and ungrudgingly accepted by the Director, that the two accused are entitled to be presumed innocent of all the charges which were brought; not only those of which they were acquitted by the jury, but also of those which were set aside and which are not to be the subject of further proceedings."
Mr Justice Murray, presiding, said the court would confirm the setting aside of the convictions with no order for a retrial.
Neither Ms Wall nor Mr McCabe will have to pay costs in the lengthy proceedings.