The “seizure of computer devices” from the home of Co. Tipperary farmer, Patrick Quirke, was “unlawful” during investigations into the murder of Bobby Ryan in 2011, the Supreme Court has ruled.
In a judgment issued today (Monday, March 20) the Supreme Court outlined that “further argument is required as to any consequences which may flow from this ruling”.
Bobby Ryan, who according to background set out in the judgement was “a busy man of wide interests”, went missing on June 3, 2011.
It also detailed that the family of Bobby Ryan had reported “that he had inexplicably vanished” and that his “final known contact with anyone, that is anyone who cared to come forward, was at Mary Lowry’s home in Fawnagowan, a townland close to Tipperary town and accessible from the N24 road”.
Bobby Ryan and Mary Lowry had been in a relationship; the judgement also noted that “some three years previously, towards the beginning of 2008, the accused (Patrick Quirke) and Mary Lowry had entered into a relationship”.
Lowry had, according to the judgement, “entered into a relationship” with Bobby Ryan “around the end of 2010”.
It also noted that the relationship with the Patrick Quirke “had by then been ended”.
“Mary Lowry owns farmlands beside her home in Fawnagowan and these lands were the subject of a seven-year leasehold agreement between Mary Lowry and the accused (Patrick Quirke) beginning on April 8, 2008,” the judgement outlined.
The Supreme Court noted that on April 30, 2013, the accused (Patrick Quirke) had notified the gardaí that he had found human remains in a tank on a farm he had been leasing for some years at Fawnagowan.
“These badly decomposed remains turned out to be the body of Bobby Ryan,” the Supreme Court judgement said.
Patrick Quirke was convicted, after a 71-day trial, of the murder of Bobby Ryan on May 1, 2019.
Quirke is seeking to have this conviction overturned.
His defence team has appealed the conviction on the basis that it was “unsound” because a computer and other digital devices that were taken from Quirke’s home were not mentioned in the sworn information on which a judge granted a search warrant “to enter his home and to seize potential evidence”.
Supreme court
In the judgement, the Supreme Court stated that in relation to the search warrant application, the “privacy rights” of the accused, Quirke, “were not respected” because “such intrusion” would need to be highlighted “through a sworn information”.
According to the judgement Gardaí had secured a warrant from the District Court – under section 6 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 – in order to carry out a search of the accused’s Quirke’s home.
It set out that because the search warrant did not specifically reference computers or digital devices or a reason for searching these devices then the seizure and access of the computer the search warrant was therefore “unlawful”.
The judgement detailed: “That was by reason of the failure in duty by those applying to at least mention that computerised searches for a particular purpose were central to the concerns of the proposed search party.”
The Supreme Court stated that the statutory power to issue a warrant enables the search of a premises.
But the judgement outlined that since “a computer device is a portal from the physical world and into the digital space even beyond the storage capacities of that device and since such devices encapsulate the potential for searches outside the physical and into a significantly different intrusion”.
The Supreme Court said that “seizing a computer for the purpose of running searches in the digital space and why that may be reasonably believed to potentially yield information as to suspected crime requires that matter to be addressed before the judge in the sworn information”.
The court is scheduled to hear submissions from the legal teams representing both Patrick Quirke and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at a later date.