Possible to confirm proceedings?

Margumerstra

Hi there,

I was wondering if it was possible to find out whether proceedings will be brought against you for public order offences? I know there can be a large delay in cases being brought before a judge and I'd like to know for my own sake of mind whether a case will be brought for something stupid I did recently (urinating in public near a Luas line, details taken by a Luas security guard – idiotic, I know...).

Also, would such cases result in a criminal record (no previous history or anything like this) or leave any sort of record at all?

Answers would be much appreciated.

Reloc8

In short no.

For reference proceedings for an offence like this have to be commenced within 6 months of the date of the incident. There is however no outer time limit for when a summons is required to be served upon you. Ordinarily, this happens within 12 months of the incident or thereabouts.

If you have the name of the investigating garda you could contact them with a view to enquiring whether you will be prosecuted - perhaps preface by apologising for what you did. That said, they are not obliged to tell you yes or no. Some would take the view that contacting to make an apology can only stand to you in the event of a charge being brought, others would say leave sleeping dogs lie.

If you are convicted of an offence it is recorded against your name and counts as a criminal conviction.

Very many of these kind of cases where a person has never been in trouble before are dealt with under the Probation of Offenders legislation, leaving a record of the case but not a criminal conviction. There's a good few threads in this forum which describe that kind of thing.

There would also be a strong possibility of being dealt with by way of adult caution, which does not involve going to court at all. Again a record of the caution is made but this is not a criminal conviction. You would tend to be contacted about this quite soon after the event and before 6 months has expired as if you turn down the adult caution option the gardai will want to be in a position to issue a summons.

If you have further specific queries you should speak to a solicitor.

Margumerstra

Thanks a million Reloc8, that was very helpful.

I've one other question, not legal advice or anything, but what happens if you change address from the one given before they send out a summons/letter? Student accommodation only lasts a year and if I'm not aware of who the investigating Garda is or anything, I can hardly inform them of a new address.

McCrack

Who did you give your details to? You said a Luas security man. If that's the case I would forget it.

ResearchWill

Margumerstra wrote: »

Thanks a million Reloc8, that was very helpful.

I've one other question, not legal advice or anything, but what happens if you change address from the one given before they send out a summons/letter? Student accommodation only lasts a year and if I'm not aware of who the investigating Garda is or anything, I can hardly inform them of a new address.

Go to An Post and redirect your mail, if I remember correctly its free for the first six months.

Margumerstra

McCrack wrote: »

Who did you give your details to? You said a Luas security man. If that's the case I would forget it.

Yeah it was, he did say that it would lead to something to do with court, but it could indeed just have been threats to stop anything like that happening in future. Worked anyways...!

Thanks for both your replies. I think I might pop into a FLAC clinic when one comes up for further piece of mind, but these replies were quite helpful and reassuring. Looking at previous threads on this forum, I think I'll probably be grand anyways as it happened before 12 midnight, whereas the public order act seems to stipulate that an offence must happen between midnight and 7am. Hopefully anyways...