A former bread delivery man has sued over injuries allegedly suffered during an incident where gardaí used a stun grenade and allegedly assaulted him while capturing two armed bank robbers.
The robbers had used Seamus O’Neill’s van, and taken him with them, in a dramatic escape attempt, the High Court heard today.
Mr O’Neill (63), Farm Road, Annagassan, Co Louth, claimed gardaí beat him and handcuffed him when they dragged him from the van believing him to be one of the robbers.
In his High Court action against the State and the two robbers, he claims gardaí used excessive force and failed to heed warnings he was a hostage rather than a criminal.
The case against the State opened today before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne and a jury while the case against the robbers - Gareth McKeown, Mountpleasant, Newry, and Desmond Carroll, High Street, Bessbrook, both Co Down - has been adjourned.
Both have served jail terms of five and nine-years respectively for their roles in the robbery.
The court was told McKeown and Carroll were part of a three-man robbery at the Bank of Ireland in Dunleer, Co Louth, on September 1st, 2000 when a firearm may have been discharged.
Their getaway car collided with a truck and while the third man, who was never caught, ran off across fields, McKeown and Carroll hijacked a Garda car at gunpoint. They drove towards Dromin before abandoning it and running off into fields themselves, Eoghan Fitzsimons SC, for Mr O’Neill, told the court.
Shortly afterwards, Mr O’Neill was delivering bread in Dromin when McKeown came out of a house carrying a gun. McKeown told Mr O’Neill they were taking his van - and him with it, counsel said.
The van set off with Mr O’Neill sitting on the gearbox in the middle of the van before they came upon a Garda checkpoint and drove through it. There followed a “dramatic and lengthy” chase in which the van collided with a number of cars to get past traffic and a roadblock set up by gardaí in Slane.
In evidence, Mr O’Neill said he was terrified throughout the journey when they reached speeds of 80mph.
Just outside Slane, a Garda car managed to bump the van and spin it around while another vehicle boxed it in to prevent it getting going again.
Mr O’Neill said he felt relieved at that point as it was “now in the hands of the gardaí”. However, a stun grenade was then thrown into the cab and he found himself blinded from the explosion, the court heard.
He said he was dragged from the van, thrown on the ground, hit repeatedly and handcuffed. There were two people on top of him, and he was only released when a detective arrived who knew him. He told the gardaí he was not a robber, Mr O’Neill said.
He was in terrible pain when the gardaí got off him and spent seven days in hospital. He had to have shrapnel from the explosion removed from his left arm which was broken, in addition treatment for burns to his chest, right arm and injury to his left thigh.
Mr O’Neill continues to suffer from those injuries and was diagnosed with post traumatic stress, the court heard. Although he had worked all his life, as a farmer, publican and bread man, Mr O’Neill had not worked since because of the effect of the injury and stress of the incident, he said
Cross-examined by Conor Maguire SC, for the State, Mr O’Neill said he did not know if it was reasonable, if it later transpired he was a robber, for the gardaí to have pulled him out of the van.
Put to him that at no time did any of the gardaí hit him, he said: “Somebody hit me”.
The hearing resumes on Tuesday.