London — Prosecutors have launched a High Court appeal to revive a terrorism-related case against Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, arguing that a chief magistrate erred in ruling the proceedings were “instituted unlawfully.”
Ó hAnnaidh, who performs as Mo Chara, was accused of displaying a flag in support of the proscribed terror organization Hezbollah during a gig at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, in November 2024. The case was thrown out on technical grounds in September last year by chief magistrate Paul Goldspring. The Crown Prosecution Service said the following month it would challenge the decision, calling the dispute an “important point of law which needs to be clarified.”
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The hearing is under way at the High Court in London. Kneecap’s JJ Ó Dochartaigh, known as DJ Provaí, and the band’s manager, Daniel Lambert, attended the proceedings.
At issue is when criminal proceedings in the magistrates’ court are legally “instituted” in cases that require the Attorney General’s or Director of Public Prosecutions’ consent to prosecute. The CPS argues that consent must exist at the point the defendant appears in court to answer the charge, while Ó hAnnaidh’s legal team maintains that consent must be in place when written charges are issued — and within the six-month statutory time limit for such offenses.
Paul Jarvis KC, representing the CPS, said the Attorney General’s permission had been secured on May 22, before Ó hAnnaidh’s first court appearance on June 18, meaning the statutory requirement was satisfied. He submitted that the consent requirement “applies when the defendant appears before the magistrates’ court to answer the charge he faces” and that this interpretation accords with case law “both before and after the introduction of that particular consent provision,” whether the offense is summary-only or indictable.
Jarvis warned that if the chief magistrate’s approach were upheld, it would shift the legal trigger for instituting proceedings to the issuance of written charges rather than the defendant’s first appearance — an outcome he characterized as “the tail wagging the dog.” He said that because permission was granted on May 22, “it follows that valid consent to the respondent’s prosecution was in place before the proceedings against the respondent were ‘instituted’ on 18 June 2025.”
For Ó hAnnaidh, Jude Bunting KC defended Judge Goldspring’s ruling as “unassailably correct,” arguing that the necessary permission and consent “were not provided at the time the proceedings were ‘instituted’.” He said the case therefore was not brought “in the correct form within the six-month statutory time limit.”
Bunting told the court that no authority supports the CPS’s position that proceedings in the magistrates’ court are only instituted when a defendant appears in person. He said the prosecution’s approach would yield “absurd results,” potentially creating multiple, conflicting points at which proceedings might be deemed to have been instituted within the same case.
He also noted that written charges can lead to defendants pleading by post and never appearing in court. In such circumstances, Bunting said, a lack of timely consent could result in a defendant being “summarily convicted of a charge issued by the police, to which the Director of Public Prosecutions had not and might never have consented, and which the Attorney General had not or would not have permitted.”
The High Court has not yet issued a ruling. The outcome will determine whether the prosecution against Ó hAnnaidh can proceed and could set guidance on when consent-dependent cases are formally instituted in the magistrates’ court.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
