A Co Carlow postman who was arrested by gardai on foot of inaccurate information supplied to them by An Post has been awarded £25,000 damages for wrongful arrest and detention.
Judge Bryan McMahon ruled in the Circuit Civil Court that an investigation by An Post into substantial and widespread shortfalls of money collected from two phone boxes by postman Mr James O'Rourke, on behalf of Telecom, had been incomplete and flawed.
He told defence counsel Mr Eoin Martin that Mr O'Rourke, of Ballykearney, Co Carlow, had been mistakenly suspected by Ms Ann O'Reilly, an investigator for An Post, of being responsible for shortfalls in the contents of two payphones at the Braun factory in Carlow.
Judge McMahon said that postmen used to collect coin boxes from 26 pay phones in the Carlow area. These were brought back to a sorting office, where the contents were counted and credited to a Telecom bank account. Large shortfalls had been reported in all 26 boxes, including the two Braun boxes.
During her investigation, Ms O'Reilly had become suspicious of four postmen: Mr O'Rourke; postman "C", who sometimes counted the contents of phone boxes; and postmen "P" and "B", who counted the contents and ultimately confessed.
Ms O'Reilly, on an incorrect assumption that there had been no shortfalls in the two Braun boxes when Mr O'Rourke had been on holiday, had, in conjunction with gardai, set a trap for Mr O'Rourke by placing marked coins in the Braun boxes.
On the next occasion on which Mr O'Rourke collected these two boxes he had been arrested and, in the presence of Ms O'Reilly and gardai, the contents of the boxes had been counted, only to reveal no shortfall.
Judge McMahon said that Ms O'Reilly had told the court her test had been inconclusive and had not cleared Mr O'Rourke of all suspicion. For An Post to say that the test was inconclusive had been to suggest that Mr O'Rourke had not passed the test, which he had done "with flying colours".
An Post had a duty as an employer to carry out further full and careful tests, which would have given them more reliable evidence of Mr O'Rourke's innocence. Had they done so, they would have found no discrepancies and would have had no reason to suspect an employee who had worked loyally for them for 16 years.
Judge McMahon said that gardai, had they been in possession of all information relating to Mr O'Rourke, would not have arrested him. The investigation by An Post had been incomplete and flawed and had proceeded on the premise that the Braun boxes did not show any shortfall while Mr O'Rourke had been on holiday, which was incorrect.
The gardai had done nothing wrong in the case and, in arresting Mr O'Rourke, had acted on grounds of reasonable suspicion. The gardai were entitled to rely on the accuracy of the information given to them by an experienced investigator of a public body. Responsibility for Mr O'Rourke's arrest had to rest with An Post.
In assessing damages, Judge McMahon said that the arrest of Mr O'Rourke had had serious consequences for him. Liberty of the individual was one of the most basic rights of the citizen and the law carefully protected it.