Three Limerick-based gardaí walked free from court after enduring a “six-year hell” and “witch hunt”, having faced unproven accusations of perverting the course of justice.
The State withdrew a total of 33 charges against Peter O’Donnell, Paul Baynham and Niall Deegan on Wednesday.
The three, who had denied any wrongdoing, were suspended from the Limerick Garda Divisional Roads Policing Unit in 2019 following a Garda investigation into alleged unlawful interference by gardaí into potential or pending road traffic prosecutions.
The investigation was focused entirely on the Limerick Garda Division and led by the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (GNBCI), based out of its Harcourt Square office in Dublin.
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At Limerick Circuit Criminal Court on Wednesday, Carl Hanahoe, prosecuting, withdrew all of the charges by entering a nolle prosequi, a term meaning do not prosecute.
The GNBCI investigation had led to charges of perverting the course of justice being brought against seven gardaí and a retired superintendent.
Last January, the other accused, Sgt Anne Marie Hassett, Sgt Michelle Leahy, gardaí Tom McGlinchey and Colm Geary, and retired Supt Eamon O’Neill, were each acquitted by a jury following a nine-week trial.
Their defence had argued the case was centred around the long-standing practice of “garda discretion” whereby gardaí use their own common sense when dealing with members of the public.
The prosecution had argued that preferential treatment was given to certain members of the public because of their association with O’Neill when he was a superintendent in the Limerick Division, which was denied.
Hassett and O’Neill, who are married, have initiated High Court proceedings against the State seeking damages.
Speaking outside court on Wednesday, garda Frank Thornton of the Garda Representative Association, Limerick Division, said O’Donnell, Baynham and Deegan had suffered a “six-year hell” while waiting for the matter to come before the courts.
He said the GRA’s “sense of relief” at the withdrawal of charges was “hampered by a suffocating emotion of anger and disbelief that our colleagues and their families have had to endure more than six years of exile, suffering, personal anguish, and character assassination”.
Thornton said he had continually highlighted the “absolute necessity” for an independent appeals process for An Garda Síochána’s suspension policy.
“What has unfolded here in Limerick with this witch hunt is a stark reminder to all that an independent public inquiry of this investigation is not an option for the Minister for Justice, it’s an absolute necessity,” he said.
Solicitor Liz Hughes, representing Baynham, O’Donnell and Deegan, said the complaint “was always without foundation”.
The “precedent” of garda discretion “has long been set by custom and practice, and was “long established” in Irish society taking the view “that the guard on the front line has common sense and the wit to apply it”, she said.
Hughes called for “public inquiry” to “address these matters and the questions as to how this happened, and the consequences that flowed from it”.
Garda Headquarters and the Department of Justice has been contacted for comment.
