Advert backing extra pay for gardaí focuses on risks they face

The injured garda, who on Friday features in a Garda Representative Association (GRA) advert backing extra pay for officers, was hurt after she was kicked repeatedly in the face at a Halloween bonfire in Clonmel eight years ago.

Garda Helena Power was attacked at the fire on Bianconi Drive, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, on October 31st, 2008, by Andrew Freaney, Elm Park, Clonmel, who was later jailed for 10 years.

Her eyeball needed 14 stitches while two operations were needed in the years after the attack to correct eyesight problems and her eye-socket was fractured.

In a victim impact statement read out in court, Garda Power said she had “lost all appetite” for her job as a result: “I’m not the person I used to be. I hate the person I’ve become because of a vicious and unprovoked attack,” she said then.

In a full-page advert, the GRA said: “Garda Power is just one of thousands of gardaí who daily risk their personal safety to protect and serve the people of Ireland.

Unique role

“Our role is unique in Irish society and it must be treated as such. The Irish Government must now take care of our members so that they can continue to take care of you,” the association declares.

The assaults happened when gardaí tried to send home Freaney’s younger brother, who was 16 years old at the time and drunk, and then tried to arrest him when he refused.

Andrew Freaney hit Sgt Thomas O’Halloran four punches to the face and when Garda Power intervened with her baton, he kicked her in the face.

Three years of Freaney’s sentence was suspended at the time on condition of good behaviour after his release following seven years in jail.

At the time of the attack on Garda Power he had a previous conviction for assaulting her; on Christmas Eve of 2006. And he had a conviction for assaulting her colleague, Garda Eoin Clifford, along with 17 other previous convictions.

Gardaí became emotional as the effects of the assault on Garda Power were outlined to Clonmel Circuit Court on the day of the sentencing in 2012.

She said she was “upset and distressed” as she felt she let her colleagues down on the night of the incident.

She had suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and, when back at work, she was “in constant fear” that she would not be able to protect herself or her colleagues.

Sgt O’Halloran said he sought a transfer from Clonmel after the incident and struggled even to go back to the town to give evidence at the trial.