The family of hit-and-run victim Shane O'Farrell have hit out at a Department of Justice report, exclusively obtained by Prime Time, that they say has "retraumatised" them.
The O’Farrell family have campaigned for reforms in the justice system since August 2011 when the 23-year-old Monaghan man was knocked down by a repeat criminal, Zigimantas Gridziuska, who was on bail from at least five different courthouses at the time of the accident.
In the year before the accident, Mr Gridziuska received a six-month prison sentence, which he never served due to a Courts Service administrative error.
In 2018, the Dáil voted for a public inquiry into the case.
However, instead of initiating a public inquiry the Department of Justice appointed a retired judge, Gerard Haughton, to report on whether further inquiries were necessary.
Judge Haughton's Scoping Exercise report has yet to be published, but Prime Time has obtained a copy. In it, the judge recommends against an inquiry.
The O’Farrell family withdrew their cooperation before the report was finalised and say that they regret having ever cooperated.
Parts of Judge Haughton’s report emphasise that Shane O’Farrell bore at least partial responsibility for his own death, and this has particularly upset the family.
"The introduction of the report essentially blames Shane for his own death. And as a family member, I think that's so shocking," Shane’s sister Hannah O’Farrell told Prime Time.
The first paragraph of the 416-page report, notes the details of the accident. It took place around 10:15pm when Shane was "struck from behind… "ZG [Zigimantas Gridziuska] failed to stop and remain at the scene and subsequently that night hid his vehicle" before returning home.
Paragraph two begins, "There were neither front nor rear lights on Shane O Farrell's bicycle which at the time was being ridden approximately [15 inches] out on the main carriageway of a major road with a speed limit of 100kmph."
Quoting the Forensic Collision Investigator, the report states "The cyclist was wearing dark clothes. He had a small red rear reflector, one yellow reflector on each pedal and a yellow armband." Further down the first page the judge quotes a court judgement stating, "Failure to have such lighting is highly negligent behaviour on the part of a cyclist."
The O’Farrell family strongly disagree with these references and believe the focus should remain on Zigimantas Gridziuska, who, aside from whether he should have been in custody, did not have valid car insurance or an NCT at the time of the accident.
Shane went out on a summer's evening and "he was legally entitled" to be on the road, that man [Gridziuska] was not legally entitled to be on the road. And that's the core issue here," Shane’s mother Lucia told Prime Time.
"Why was that man at liberty to kill in circumstances when he should have been in jail? He had committed 30 offences while on bail… He had unpaid fines to the court. He had received a prison sentence for four counts of heroin, which he hadn't served… where did the system break down that allowed this?" she asks.
Prime Time sought comment from Judge Haughton. In a response, the Department of Justice stated "Judge Haughton is of the view that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the report. The report has yet to be published by the Minister and laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas."
The O'Farrell family were provided with a draft version of Judge Haughton’s Scoping Exercise and decided to withdraw cooperation in May 2022, a month before the report was completed and handed to Justice Minister Helen McEntee.
The final report includes a response by the judge to a letter from the O’Farrell family solicitors complaining about references to Shane in the draft report. In the response, Judge Haughton stated that Shane was "partly responsible" for the accident "unless, for some reason which you have not explained, the rules of the road and the recommendations of the RSA [Road Safety Authority]… did not apply to him or that you contend that there is no rational basis for the law requiring a cyclist to have lights on a bike at night."
Judge Haughton also referenced evidence of a "near miss" incident allegedly involving Shane O’Farrell, a lorry and a car shortly before the fatal collision.
It's not an emphasis that the family envisaged when they embarked on their campaign after Shane’s death on 2 August 2011. That campaign focused on how the justice system dealt with the driver of the car that killed Shane.
"We're now left with a report that blames Shane for his own death," Hannah O’Farrell said. "There's no doubt that we are now worse off, and Shane's memory is worse off for us having participated in this process, which is shocking."
"If we had done nothing on the 2nd of August and we hadn't asked any of those difficult questions, we wouldn't have a report like this that will sit on a shelf… Shane is completely innocent in this. He wasn't killed by a normal average person who had no previous convictions. He was killed by a criminal who should have been in prison and had multiple previous convictions."
Lucia O'Farrell says simply, "It's cruel. It's cruel to Shane's memory."
The report praises the input of the family into the report. "Their collective input and participation was critical as without it this exercise would have been greatly diminished and limited if not pointless."
Judge Haughton also acknowledges the pain of the family at the references in it to Shane's responsibility in his demise.
But Lucia O’Farrell said, "I'm sorry I ever took part in anything to do with it. It has retraumatised us, revictimised us."
The O’Farrell family’s campaign, spearheaded in public by Shane’s mother Lucia, gained support from politicians across different parties. In 2017, then opposition Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said in the Dáil that "The entire case reveals shocking malpractice and dysfunction within our criminal justice system at all levels and the most effective way at this stage in our view is that an inquiry should be established."
The O’Farrell family say that the Scoping Exercise report has failed to answer to their satisfaction the question about why Mr Gridziuska was at liberty at the time of the accident.
After the accident, they began to investigate and discovered that in the 19 months before the accident Gridziuska, a Lithuanian national, came before courts in border counties on at least 16 occasions for around 30, mainly theft and drugs charges, all of which were committed while on bail.
"Bail had no legal meaning for him. Law and order had no legal meaning for him," said Lucia.
The O’Farrells believe that Gridziuska’s bail should have been revoked because he repeatedly breached his bail conditions - he often failed to sign on at the garda station, he left the jurisdiction without permission and, most importantly, continued to commit criminal offences.
However, in his report, Judge Gerard Haughton, disagrees. While noting that "conditions of bail were breached by ZG numerous times" the judge says that "none of the breaches constituted an offence under section 13" of the Criminal Justice Act, which deals with breaches of bail conditions.
Judge Haughton describes Gridziuska’s "offending behaviour" as that of a "recidivist minor shoplifter" that was not serious enough for him to be refused bail, noting that "None of his offences in Ireland North or South involved the use of violence or threats thereof."
Lucia O’Farrell rejects this. "Either we have law and order or we don't. I mean, if there's a breach of bail, there's a breach of bail, action needs to be taken," she said. "If the state don't take bail seriously and bail law seriously, you hardly expect criminals to."
Shane O’Farrell’s sister Hannah asks, "what is the function of bail in Ireland if it's not to bring back before the courts a person who has committed further offenses on bail, who clearly has no respect for the law? What is the function of bail law in Ireland if that's not the case?"
Judge Haughton, however, noted that Gridziuska never failed to show up for a court appearance which, he says, is the main purpose of bail. 
He also states in his report, "There are literally thousands of recidivist offenders involved in shoplifting and minor thefts throughout the country… If the courts were to adopt a practice of routinely refusing bail under section 2 to such "petty thieves" as [Zigimantas Gridziuska] our prisons would overflow." Section 2 of the Bail Act allows for bail to be refused in cases where a court is satisfied that an accused may commit a serious offence if released.
Judge Haughton does not recommend sweeping reform of the bail system though he does recommend that the Department of Justice discusses bail laws and protocols for revoking bail with judges, gardai and lawyers. Regarding the Shane O'Farrell case, he wrote: "I do not believe that there are any circumstances in the context of the granting of bail, objections to bail, applications to revoke bail or the monitoring of compliance with conditions of bail which arise from the death of Mr O’Farrell which warrant further investigation or inquiry beyond those already carried out…"
The Haughton Scoping Exercise deals a blow for the O’Farrell family’s aim for a public inquiry into how the justice system treated the man who knocked down their son and brother and left him on the side of the road. But they reject the notion that it means the end of their campaign
"The Dáil voted two to one for a public inquiry into the case. And the reason they did that was because there were serious problems in the application and enforcement of bail in this case, such as that an individual was at large and was on the road the evening he killed Shane. So that question remains. The reason that they voted for a public inquiry still stands because we still don't have an answer to that," Hannah O’Farrell said.
Zigimantas Gridziuska never served prison time for the hit-and-run that left Shane O’Farrell dead. He was found not guilty of dangerous driving in relation to the accident but was found guilty of other offences, including leaving the scene of the accident. He was later imprisoned for other crimes. He was deported from Ireland to Lithuania ten years ago, on 27 June 2013, and barred from returning for ten years. As things stand, Mr Gridziuska is now legally allowed to come back to Ireland.
Watch Paul Murphy and producer Isabel Perceval’s Prime Time report on Judge Haughton’s report at 9.35pm on RTÉ One.
