Four prison officers have taken a High Court challenge to disciplinary proceedings taken against them. The proceedings followed an incident in Mountjoy Prison in 1999 in which a prisoner sustained facial injuries.
The four officers deny any wrongdoing, culpable conduct or omissions in relation to the incident on September 18th, 1999 involving prisoner Colm Fogarty and said they are being "scapegoated" after the acquittal last March of another officer, Mr Alan Garvey, on charges related to the same incident.
They also believe the invocation of disciplinary proceedings against them now, more than two years after the incident, is not unrelated to the pending visit to Mountjoy Prison of the European body, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
"We believe that the prison authorities in this country are seeking this disciplinary investigation to deflect inevitable questions by this committee into the Colm Fogarty affair," they said in an affidavit.
Mr Justice Murphy granted leave to Mr Roddy Horan, for officers Barry Hayden, Richard Dowd, Colm Davis and Finbarr Burke, with addresses at St Patrick's Institution, Dublin; Midlands Prison, Dublin Road, Portlaoise; Cloverhill Prison, Clondalkin, Dublin and Castelrea Prison, Castelrea, Co Roscommon, to take judicial review proceedings challenging the entitlement to take disciplinary proceedings at this stage.
Mr Horan said all four received letters from the Mountjoy Prison deputy governor on April 3rd last, telling them that, arising out of a prison investigation into the incident involving Mr Fogarty, it appeared they might have committed a breach of discipline under Prison Rules 1996 and each had a case to answer.
The complaints variously alleged neglect of duty, failure to protect Mr Fogarty and the making of false or misleading statements on the incident, the officers said.
Each of them had written seeking a copy of the transcript of the trial of Officer Alan Garvey, which concluded in March last with Mr Garvey's acquittal. They were told the authorities did not have a transcript and that the complaints about the four officers were based entirely on the prison investigation into the incident.
The officers said their solicitor had written to the authorities in May last, asserting the complaints were made out of time and did not comply with prison rules which required that the process be invoked no later than seven working days after information giving rise to the complaint came to the notice of a senior officer.
The deputy governor had replied on May 22nd last that he was fully complying with the 1996 Rules and intended to proceed with the complaints as outlined.
