Garda found guilty of insurance fraud

A garda has found guilty of motor insurance fraud but has been acquitted of harassing a garage owner and his father after a dispute over crash repairs that had been carried out on the officer’s car.

Garda Paul Fogarty (27), who is based at Dundrum Garda station, had pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to harassing Christopher Kelly and his father, Patrick, on dates between November 1st, 2008 and May 31st, 2009.

He had also pleaded not guilty to dishonestly by deception inducing Quinn Direct to pay out an insurance claim of €10,254 at Littlepace, Clonee, Co Meath.

The jury returned its verdict on day five of the trial after just over three hours deliberation. Judge Sarah Berkeley remanded Fogarty on continuing bail until next July for sentencing.

Fogarty cried when the not guilty verdicts were returned 30 minutes before the jury came back with the guilty verdict.

The court heard that Fogarty had bought a Toyota Celica for €19,000 in May 2007 and taxed it for third party fire and theft with Quinn Direct. He crashed the car in a single vehicle collision in January 2008 on the M50.

He later brought it to Mr Kelly’s garage in Trim, County Meath to carry out repairs on the car and paid €5,000 in advance for the work.

Mr Kelly told Melanie Greally BL, prosecuting, during the trial that he returned the vehicle to Fogarty in November 2008 and he was not happy with the state of repair, particularly a bumper that had been fitted to it.

He said he then received approximately 600 text messages from Fogarty over a number of months. He described the messages as offensive and threatening and said the garda told him at one stage he would break his legs and kick his parent’s door in.

Mr Kelly claimed that the accused told him he came from “a hardened family” and implied he didn’t know who he was messing with.

He told the jury that he was then forced to recruit a person to steal a Celica of a similar model and spec to Fogarty’s car so that he could use those body parts and fit them to the accused’s vehicle.

The witness agreed with Breffni Gordon BL, defending, that he has served a jail term for handling and possessing stolen vehicles after his garage was raided by gardaí in April 2009.

Mr Kelly refused to accept a suggestion from counsel that he reported the alleged harassment to gardaí­ as “leverage” when he was caught with the stolen cars.

He told Mr Gordon that in April 2009 he met with Fogarty and arranged for the Celica to be stolen outside the officer’s grandparent’s home when requested to do so.

Patricia Treacy, a former employee of Quinn Direct, that she met with Fogarty in April 2009 after he made an insurance claim for the Celica.

She said Fogarty told her that the car had been stolen from outside his grandmother’s house. He said the Celica had never been involved in a crash and was in good condition.

Ms Treacy said that she initially got a pre-accident value for the Celica of €8,240 but Fogarty was not happy with that. He said his car had been a higher spec and model to those Celica’s they that insurance company had compared them to.

She said the accused was happy with the revised figure of €10,254.15, he signed an acceptance form and the cheque was issued on April 15th 2009.