Beating left victim 'like jelly', court told

A MAN has told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court how he was “like jelly” after being beaten by gardaí who entered the bedroom where he was sleeping.

Owen Gaffney (21) said the attack by “more than three” gardaí left his nose bleeding and swollen, his skin broken and marked and his lip “busted”.

Mr Gaffney, 67 Basin Street Upper Flats, near St James’s Hospital Dublin 8, was giving evidence yesterday in the trial of four gardaí charged with his assault causing harm.

Garda Alan Conlon, Claire Delaney, Eoin Murtagh and Seán O’Leary are also charged with forcible entry and trespass at the family home on February 17th, 2008.

Garda Conlon, Delaney and Murtagh are also accused of the false imprisonment of Mr Gaffney’s mother Fidelma in a bathroom of her flat.

The four officers, who were stationed at Kilmainham and Kevin Street Garda stations at the time, deny all of the charges.

Mr Gaffney, who was then 18, said he played in goal for Mourne Celtic football club on Sunday, February 17th, 2008. He came home to the flat about 2pm and went straight to bed. He woke up after hearing the door creak but dozed again until he sensed someone.

He said he opened his eyes to see Garda O’Leary standing over him with two batons in his hands. Garda O’Leary hit him in the head and then the other gardaí started hitting him. Garda Murtagh hit him in the arm with his baton.

Mr Gaffney told the court Garda O’Leary and Garda Murtagh then picked him up and smacked his head off the end of the bed. “I was all dazed. They took turns to hit me.”

Asked by Tom O’Connell, for the DPP, how many officers were involved in the alleged attack, the witness said he wasn’t sure. There were more than three involved, but it was “all a bit of a daze”.

He said his mother came running in when she heard the gardaí hitting him. The officers had him by the neck against a mirror.

He pleaded with Garda O’Leary: “Seán, I says, please not in front of me ma.”

The gardaí took his mother out of the room and then put him on the floor and took turns hitting him, Mr Gaffney said. He lay on the ground trying to block the blows but was hit on the back. He was put on the sofa and Garda Murtagh kicked him “into the chin” before they left. The attack lasted five to seven minutes.

Mr Gaffney said he went on to the balcony of the flat complex because his mother was crying and she had “kinda” fallen on the ground. He picked her up and she chased the officers and then went to a shop for a camera to take photographs of his injuries.

He went for treatment to St James’s Hospital and later made a formal complaint to the Garda Ombudsman Commission.

Asked if he had struck anyone during the incident, Mr Gaffney said he hadn’t, and he couldn’t because he was “like jelly” after being hit with batons.

Mr Gaffney told counsel he knew Garda O’Leary from the area because he was stationed in Kilmainham. On one occasion Garda O’Leary had stopped him when he was driving a Nissan Micra with no tax or insurance.

Mr O’Connell asked if anything had happened on the day before the alleged attack. Was the witness involved in, or did he witness any row? Mr Gaffney said he wasn’t involved in or aware of any row.

Earlier, an officer with the Garda Ombudsman Commission said he photographed several blood stains on the wall, radiator and the frame of Mr Gaffney’s bed.

Photographs of Mr Gaffney’s bedroom were shown to the jury. Rody Butler, scenes of crime examiner with the commission, said he found several blood marks on a wall and radiator next to Mr Gaffney’s bed, on the bed frame, on a mirror and a flag hanging on the wall. He described airborne blood marks on the door as being like an “inverted exclamation mark”.

The trial before Judge Desmond Hogan continues today with Mr Gaffney’s cross-examination by lawyers for the four gardaí.