A NOW retired garda “aided and abetted” three people in defrauding an insurance company, a court in Wexford heard yesterday.
John Joe Synnott is charged with deceiving his superiors by producing a false traffic accident report; falsely reporting a traffic accident for the purpose of gaining advantage for himself or others and, by deception, inducing Axa Insurances to pay out €23,332 as a result.
Mr Synnott (53) of Camblin Hill, New Ross, pleaded not guilty to all charges arising out of an alleged road traffic accident at Newtown Road, Wexford, on September 9th, 2007.
The case was heard before Judge Alice Doyle in Wexford Circuit Court. Paul McDermott, SC, in his opening address to the jury of eight women and four men, said they would hear evidence regarding the alleged accident between Beverly Redmond and Lorraine Quinlan on the morning in question when Mr Synnott was on patrol in Wexford.
Evidence would be produced to show that Joseph Redmond, who was joint recipient of a cheque from Axa with Ms Redmond, was the former partner of Ms Redmond and subsequently the partner of Ms Quinlan.
Mr McDermott said a further person, named as Daniel Lynch, purported to be the partner of Ms Quinlan but “it will be shown that Mr Redmond and Mr Lynch are one and the same person.
“The prosecution will establish there was contact between Joseph Redmond and John Joe Synnott in the period leading up to the fraud,” he added.
The jury would hear evidence the two cars purported to be involved in the accident had “dubious histories” and one of the cars, an Audi A4, had a registration plate belonging to a car that was burned out in 2005.
The court heard the recording of a call made by Mr Synnott to the Garda Information Services Centre in Castlebar on September 11th, 2007, where the details of the alleged accident were inputted to the Garda Pulse system.
The court heard Mr Synnott say the crash happened at 11am when the Audi A4 driven by Ms Redmond, which was travelling from Wexford to New Ross, hit a parked car head-on.
Garda Declan Dennehy told the court he was on duty on the morning in question from 6am and was detailed to be an observer in the official patrol car driven by Mr Synnott. He told the judge the only traffic incident they were called to that morning was a suspected hit-and-run just outside Taghmon near Wexford.
Garda James Maher gave evidence that he was in the communication room from 6am to 2pm on the day in question and he did not log any call regarding an accident on Newtown Road.
The maximum penalty for the two corruption charges is 10 years in jail with a maximum penalty of five years in relation to deceiving superiors.
The trial is expected to take two weeks with approximately 80 witnesses due to be called.