Confidence in the Garda Síochána has sunk to unprecedented depths, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Two public inquiries into the behaviour of the Garda Síochána are taking place as this year ends: the Morris tribunal, investigating the activities of certain members of the Donegal force, and the Barr inquiry into the shooting dead of John Carthy in Abbeylara.
But these inquiries, serious as they are, are just part of the picture. Allegations made against members of the Garda during the year range from the fabrication of evidence and perjury in court, to assault on members of the public who are exercising their right to protest or just going about their daily business.
It is impossible to list them all. Some of the issues causing concern originate in previous years. But they have reached such a level of gravity that Garda evidence in serious criminal trials is now regularly doubted by senior members of the judiciary.
In January, Mr Justice Barr, in the Special Criminal Court, described as "discredited witnesses" two gardaí investigating Colm Murphy's involvement in the Omagh bombing. After fabricating one page of an interview, Det Garda Liam Donnelly and Det Garda John Fahy had discovered the information they'd inserted was wrong, so they'd removed the page and replaced it with another. The Garda Commissioner, Pat Byrne, set up an inquiry into their "persistent lying under oath", the results of which are not known.
The same judge prompted an earlier internal inquiry, arising from the trial, in the same court, of Paul Ward for the murder of Veronica Guerin. The court found it "extraordinary" that two sets of Garda interrogators were unaware, as they continued their questioning, that Ward had already admitted to being an accessory to the murder. The court considered it likely that this admission came into existence later. Ward's conviction was subsequently overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
This court also overturned the conviction of publican Frank Shortt, who had been convicted of allowing drugs to be sold on his premises. It did not believe the evidence of two Garda witnesses who were found to have fabricated evidence. The gardaí in this case are also the subjects of claims to the Morris tribunal.
There is also an internal inquiry going on into how a homeless drug addict, Dean Lyons, came to confess to the murder of two female psychiatric patients in 1997. His confession was in a clear, grammatically correct language not evident on the tapes of his interviews. Another man, Mark Nash, later admitted to the killings, displaying knowledge of details not in the public domain, and charges against Lyons were dropped. He has since died.
Allegations about fabricated evidence are a feature of the Morris tribunal. Frank McBrearty allegedly confessed to the murder of cattle-dealer Ritchie Barron, although a senior officer in the Donegal division considered this confession to be so dubious that he recommended it should not be sent to the DPP. This same officer, however, is alleged to have colluded in the planting of subversive paraphernalia around Donegal in order to secure promotion.
Another garda in this division is alleged to have planted evidence against campaigners against a new television transmitter, and to have planted a gun in a Travellers' camp. Criminal proceedings are ongoing in this case.
In Dublin, demonstrators at a Reclaim the Streets march this summer were assaulted by members of the force, with 12 people arrested and 12 others injured. Television cameras recorded the assaults, and an inquiry ensued in which none of the 150 gardaí involved were willing to identify colleagues responsible for the assaults.
Those suspected of subversive or violent crime have often fallen victim to Garda misconduct, thereby undermining the criminal justice system. But even people who might excuse this behaviour have been disturbed by the fact that vulnerable people who may be involved in petty crime, such as Dean Lyons, found themselves falsely accused of much more serious crimes.
People going about their ordinary business have not been safe from Garda misconduct. In July of this year, Gráinne and Ciara Walsh settled an action against the Garda and the Commissioner for an undisclosed sum, following their arrest, assault and wrongful charging because they were in the way of an unmarked Garda car reversing at speed in a pedestrian area. They are just two of the 70 people who have received a total of €6 million in compensation for assault and wrongful arrest by members of the force in the past five years. All but six of the cases were settled without going to court, thus preventing them being brought into the public arena.
Apart from the courts, the gardaí are answerable to the Garda Complaints Board, which appears to have had little impact on the force's culture of impunity. In a telling comment at the opening of the Morris tribunal, its counsel, Peter Charleton, said that in all of the 31 complaints by members of the McBrearty family considered by the board, the investigating officer, where there was a choice, preferred the version of events put forward by a garda to those given by a civilian complainant.
The board's replacement by a truly independent, transparent body is long overdue.