Culture of impunity for Garda misbehaviour must be changed

This week's evidence about mistreatment of two women by members of the Garda Síochána in Donegal should not have come as a surprise…

This week's evidence about mistreatment of two women by members of the Garda Síochána in Donegal should not have come as a surprise to anyone, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent.

The admissions this week from Det Sgt John White and Det Garda John Dooley that they mistreated Róisín McConnell and Katrina Brolly are a surprise only in that they mark a departure from years of denial, on their part and that of their colleagues, that such mistreatment takes place.

For decades there has been evidence of the mistreatment of suspects by members of the Garda Síochána. This has emerged in successive court cases, where the prosecution has failed because of confessions obtained under duress, or in convictions later overturned on appeal for the same reason; and in three successive reports from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.

The latter is a sub-committee of the Council of Europe, described earlier this week by the Minister for Justice as "the pre-eminent body in the area of human rights in Europe".

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This mistreatment has been tolerated within the Garda and by successive governments for years. There has been a tacit acceptance, extending to society at large, that rough methods are sometimes justifiable, even if they are against the law. All citizens, whatever their associations may be, have the same constitutional rights, including the right not to be mistreated by agents of the State, and to act otherwise is to undermine the rule of law. Equally seriously, an unchecked culture of mistreating suspects ends up catching in its trawl people with no criminal or subversive associations whatsoever, and undermining public confidence in the justice system.

Recent examples of this include former nun Nora Wall, falsely convicted of rape of a child, along with her co-accused, Pablo McCabe, now deceased, and Dean Lyons.

Pablo McCabe, a homeless man with addiction problems, confessed to the rape in circumstances that have never been explained.

Dean Lyons was also homeless and a drug addict when he confessed to the murder of two women in their home in the grounds of Grangegorman hospital, a confession now acknowledged to be false and which is the subject of an inquiry.

A Dublin solicitor, Grainne Malone, complained about the treatment of two of her clients in Tallaght Garda station two years ago. A video recording showed them being verbally abused and threatened with rape by prisoners during questioning.

Twenty-two years ago a small farming family in Co Kerry was caught up in a nightmare which prefigured that of the McBrearty family to an uncanny degree.

Joanne Hayes, a 25-year-old unmarried mother, confessed to having killed a baby whose body was found on a beach near Cahirciveen about 60 miles from her home. Her brothers confessed to throwing the baby's body off Slea Head, and her mother and sister also confessed to involvement in the murder.

Joanne Hayes had been having an affair with a local married man, and was pregnant with what would have been their second child. When arrested, she insisted the baby had been born prematurely on the family farm, had been stillborn or died shortly afterwards, and that she had buried it on the farm.

After several hours' questioning, she confessed to murdering the baby whose body was found. She was charged with murder; her siblings, mother and aunt with concealment of the birth.

Inconveniently for the Garda, the day after she confessed to the murder of the Cahirciveen baby, her own baby's body was found on the farm. According to the State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, it showed no evidence of foul play. Blood tests showed this baby was the child of Joanne and her lover, but that the Cahirciveen baby could not have been his.

Undeterred, the gardaí then came up with the absurd theory that Joanne had been pregnant with twins by two different fathers, and persisted with the charge against her. However, the DPP did not agree, and all charges were dropped.

Following her ordeal, Joanne wrote to a friend: "When the gardaí took me down to the station on Tuesday they were delighted because, according to them, they had the murderer for the baby in Cahirciveen. I had to make a false statement because they told me that if I didn't my mother would be jailed and Yvonne [ her daughter] would be put into an orphanage."

A subsequent tribunal into the affair exonerated the gardaí of abuse, although it criticised their twin pregnancy theory. It preferred their evidence about the family to that of Dr Harbison concerning the death of Joanne's child, and concluded it had been killed, though the tribunal agreed with the DPP that no charges relating to the Cahirciveen baby were justified.

These events proved no obstacle to the advancement of the gardaí involved in the investigation that had resulted in several false confessions. One member of the murder squad who investigated the case, Det Sgt Joseph Shelly, became the Detective Superintendent who, according to evidence to the Morris tribunal, suggested that Det Sgt White and Garda Dooley "break" Róisín McConnell and Katrina Brolly, although Det Sgt White stressed that "break" merely meant they were to obtain the truth. Det Supt Shelly took early retirement following the publication of the first Morris tribunal report.

In 1993, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture made its first visit to Ireland, as part of its routine visits to member states of the Council of Europe in fulfilment of its mandate to ensure those detained by the State are treated properly. It visited again in 1998 and 2002. The next visit is due later this year.

As well as visiting places of detention, the CPT consults widely with Government Ministers, civil servants, the Garda Síochána and non-governmental organisations. Its reports are published by the State, along with the State's response.

In all of its reports it has stated that there have been widespread allegations of mistreatment by the Garda, sometimes to obtain information or a confession. It detailed examples like baton blows administered to a telephone directory held to a person's head. In its most recent report it said yet again that the number and consistency of allegations lent them credibility.

In each report it recommended measures to combat this abuse, including external monitoring of Garda stations and video-taping of interviews; the first ignored, the latter introduced only with great reluctance many years after it was agreed. Its reports do not receive widespread coverage, not are they debated seriously in the Oireachtas.

Up to now, most of the people who suffered this mistreatment were poor, some of them were uneducated or otherwise marginalised, they had no influential political friends. The McBrearty family were different in that they were not poor nor politically isolated. It has taken their dogged persistence to bring Garda misconduct into the open.

It is vital that this not be seen as peculiar to Donegal, and that the culture of impunity for such behaviour that has persisted for so long comes to an end.