A retired superintendent and four serving gardaí accused of unlawfully squaring away pending or potential road traffic prosecutions have been found not guilty on all 39 counts.
After eight weeks of hearing evidence at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, the jury, consisting of eight men and four women, retired last Friday afternoon following just more than two hours of deliberation.
The jury resumed deliberating at 9.40am on Monday and spent more than five hours trying to reach a verdict on the charges against all five accused before reaching one this afternoon.
Last week, the jury heard closing submissions from barristers for all five accused, who said the investigation by the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (GNBCI) and subsequent prosecution of the five accused was “nonsense”.
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The accused retired superintendent, Eamon O’Neill, was charged with 27 counts of engaging in conduct tending or intended to pervert the course of justice when he was serving in the midwest region between 2017 and 2019.
Mr O’Neill, along with four co-accused serving gardaí – Sgt Anne Marie Hassett, Sgt Michelle Leahy, Garda Colm Geary and Garda Tom McGlinchey – had denied a total of 39 counts of unlawfully interfering in potential or pending prosecutions involving 26 motorists.
The prosecution’s case, led by senior counsel Carl Hanahoe, was that Mr O’Neill gave “preferential” treatment to people he knew or had a close connection with in trying to get them off potential or pending road traffic prosecutions.
Mr Hanahoe had argued that “preference” was entirely different to “discretion”, which the court heard was a power available to gardaí when using their own judgment on whether to pursue a prosecution.
Mr Hanahoe argued that local superintendents lost the power to cancel traffic tickets in 2014 when this power was reconfigured to the office of a Cancelling Authority after the much-publicised “penalty points scandal” that was unearthed by Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.
Mr Hanahoe told the jury the main reason for attempts to get the motorists off was Mr O’Neill’s friendship or close connection with the individuals. Mr Hanahoe said these people were not on trial.
Mr Hanahoe produced text messages in court that he said clearly showed Mr O’Neill was using his indirect connection with the motorists as the reason for quashing their pending or potential prosecutions.
Sometimes the detecting garda would be asked in a text if they could “square” the court summonses. If the prosecution was by way of a GoSafe speed detection van, the case would be withdrawn in court by a Garda court presenter, Mr Hanahoe said.
The court heard motorists contacted Supt O’Neill, asking for advice and discretion. In turn, Supt O’Neill contacted Garda Tom McGlinchey and Garda Colm Geary, who in turn contacted the investigating garda in the cases. Sgt Hassett also texted some of the detecting Garda members, and, Sgt Leahy “ensured the summonses were withdrawn”, said Mr Hanahoe.
It was a case of “who you are”, said Mr Hanahoe, and that Mr O’Neill allowed this “preference” and his “friendship” with others to dictate “who ought to be prosecuted”.
Mr Hanahoe said the four serving accused gardaí, who had no connection to the cases, involved themselves by trying to “persuade” other gardaí not to prosecute the motorist, or in the case of Sgt Leahy, had some of the cases struck out in court.
“The evidence is clear; what was happening was preference – pure and simple, and the appropriate verdict on all counts is guilty,” Mr Hanahoe told the jury.
In his closing speech, Felix McEnroy, senior counsel for Mr O’Neill, said experienced senior gardaí, including, retired assistant Garda commissioner Fintan Fanning and retired chief superintendent Gerry Mahon, had given evidence at the trial of their concern of relying on text messages in a Garda investigation.
Mr McEnroy said when Mr Mahon found out about the GNBCI investigation into Mr O’Neill, he was so “concerned” that he wrote a 17-page letter to the then Garda commissioner and another letter to the then deputy commissioner “outlying his serious misgivings”.
Mr McEnroy suggested to the jury they were “not getting the whole story” from the prosecution and that a previous GNBCI investigation into Mr O’Neill, in respect of completely separate allegations not before the court, “went nowhere”.
“They don’t want me to talk about that. That was one serious mess,” said Mr McEnroy.
Mr McEnroy said Mr O’Neill told GNBCI he had legitimately used a long-established practice of Garda discretion when the allegations of unlawfully squaring summonses were put to him.
Mr McEnroy said because GNBCI’s first investigation failed to damage Mr O’Neill, it had pursued him in a “vicious” way.
Mr McEnroy said Mr O’Neill was regarded as an “outstanding garda” who helped end a decade-long gangland warfare in Limerick city, which resulted in 23 murders, but, he said the GNBCI investigations had left him “destroyed” inside.
“This is insane, this case has a vicious undertone,” added Mr McEnroy.
Vincent Heneghan, senior counsel for Garda Geary, said his client received a text message from Supt O’Neill asking him to do something and he did it.
“He didn’t think behind it, he did what he was tasked to do. He was a garda and Mr O’Neill was a superintendent. He did nothing wrong,” said Mr Heneghan.
Senior counsels John Byrne, for Garda McGlinchey; Jim O’Mahony, for Sgt Hassett; and Andrew Sexton, for Sgt Leahy, told the jury their clients were not guilty and they had been following orders of a superior officer.
Responding to the verdict, Garda Representative Association representative for Limerick Frank Thornton said: “Today’s verdict follows seven challenging, frustrating and turbulent years and we are relieved with the decision of the jury.”
