A Naval Service sailor who disclosed the location of his ship to his girlfriend by text has been sentenced to three months in prison and discharged from the Defence Forces.
Able Seaman Eoin Gray’s conduct was a “serious offence”, “totally unacceptable” and showed he could no longer earn the trust of his superiors, military judge Colonel Anthony McCourt said.
Gray (24) pleaded guilty today at a court martial hearing at McKee Barracks in Dublin to a single offence of knowingly and without due authority disclosing the whereabouts of his ship the LE Orla to his girlfriend, an offence under Section 158 (1) of the Defence Act 1954.
Charges of aiding the importation of cocaine into Ireland and possession of cocaine were dropped against him yesterday along with two other charges.
The court had been told that Gray had made repeated attempts to contact a friend at the Fisheries Monitoring Centre in Haulbowline in Co Cork to find out the status of his vessel and see if he was free for the weekend. He then texted the information to his girlfriend.
The judge told him that it was understandable that he would want to inform his girlfriend about when he was off duty, but his conduct “went way beyond that”.
“Your off-duty social life does not entitle you to disclose information about the whereabouts of your vessel,” he said.
Gray joined the Navy in June 2006 and was there for two-and-a-half years when the incident took place between December 4th and December 18th 2008.
The judge said the accused had been in the Navy long enough to know of the sensitivities of disclosing such information to outside parties. It made his conduct “all the more unacceptable” because he had “betrayed the trust and confidence” of those he worked with in the Naval Service.
The judge described the offence is in the “middle range” of seriousness in relation to the charge of disclosing the location of a State ship at sea, but it nevertheless merited a 12 month jail sentence and discharge from the armed forces.
He took into account a number of mitigating circumstances including the fact that Gray had only one previous disciplinary sanction against him - which was dealt with summarily when he went AWOL for five hours - and had no civil convictions.
He was also described as an “excellent student” at the army school of catering and the judge took into account his age and the fact that he had a two-year-old daughter.
Before sentencing Gray’s barrister Ross Maguire BL said the original charges against his client of importation and possession of drugs “could hardly be more serious” for a member of the defence forces, but the Director of Military Prosecutions was now satisfied that Gray’s offence was a “private matter” and had nothing to do with anything else.
Gray was taken away to serve his sentence at the military prison in the Curragh.
