Inquiry hears ‘ridiculous’ situation of pregnant armed garda

A detective garda has described a “ridiculous” situation involving an obviously pregnant, armed member of the Garda National Surveillance Unit (NSU) running into the scene of a botched cash-in-transit robbery in Co Wicklow in 1998.

The NSU and the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) were involved when Ronan MacLochlainn (28) was fatally shot by Garda members during the armed robbery at the Cullenmore bends on the N11 in Ashford, Co Wicklow.

The MacLochlainn Commission of Investigation is inquiring into the circumstances of the killing.

The detective garda, identified only as DG06 to protect his identity, told the commission he drove to within four feet of the Ford transit van, after it had been stopped by raiders.

He faced his “worst nightmare” when he saw a man in a balaclava sitting in a car, with a sawn-off shotgun pointed directly at him. DG06 said he drew his revolver, assumed a firing stance and would likely have shouted to the gunman to drop his weapon. The gunman dropped his weapon and DG06 along with two colleagues rushed towards the car and pulled him out.

DG06 said he had seen a female surveillance unit colleague running towards him. “It looked so ridiculous, here was an obviously pregnant female with her weapon drawn running into the scene of an armed robbery”. He said “if your saw it on TV you wouldn’t believe it”.

The commission also heard that in the midst of the confrontation a member of the gang had fled the scene, dumping a florescent jacket and making his way across a field where he hid in a ditch. Commission chairwoman Mary Rose Gearty told the hearing the “miscreant” had later attributed his capture to the overhead Garda aircraft directing gardaí on the ground to his hiding place.

Surveillance

However a detective garda, who was in that aircraft and identified at the commission as DG 17, said the aircraft had extremely limited vision of the events on the ground and could only see cars as “coloured dots” and “movement”.

DG17 said the aircraft which had twice that day been tasked for surveillance would have had difficulty making anything out because of the wooded terrain in the valley. “I never saw a man in a field. I was lucky to see a field, never mind a man in the field”, he said.

DG17 said the aircraft acted as a “repeater” for aerial communications used by the Garda.

In 2010 MacLochlainn’s partner Gráinne Nic Gibb took a case against Ireland under the European Convention on Human Rights alleging a failure on the part of the State to carry out an effective official investigation into the fatal shooting in accordance with the terms of Article 2 of the Convention.

The State subsequently agreed to set up a commission of inquiry into the incident. In order to protect the anonymity of some Garda witnesses their evidence was taken in closed session over recent months and is being read into the transcript by Ms Gearty and barristers Dara Hayes and Joanne Williams.