Mr. Kieran FitzGerald:

At the risk of repeating the point Ms Justice Ring just made, we often investigate an allegation of a serious offence and, through evidence gathering and the processing the various evidential strands, we might conclude that the serious allegation with which we started is not actually tenable but that a much more minor offence might have occurred. This will emerge late enough in the investigation. In this context, we certainly come across potential offences which are statute barred but which were not apparent at the beginning of our investigation. This does occur.