A Garda sergeant, who groped a young female colleague before telling her "I’d say you’re some screamer in bed”, has been spared a jail term.
The sergeant, who was fined €1,000, had grabbed her leg near her genital area, and whispered the remark after she screamed in shock, Dublin District Court heard.
The sergeant, whose 28-year career is in now tatters, is facing the sack and risks losing his pension, the court was told.
He had denied sexually assaulting the woman at a Garda station in Dublin, on a date in June 2010, but was found guilty following a non-jury trial today.
Reporting restrictions had been imposed earlier to protect the identity of the victim.
It was the second time in a week that he was found guilty of sexual assault. He is to be sentenced on Friday for groping a female probationer garda on two occasions in 2010.
The sergeant, who did not give evidence, broke down, wept and hugged his partner in the public gallery, after Judge Timothy Lucey delivered a guilty verdict.
“There is no reason that can be attributed to it apart from indecency in my view”, the judge said, however he added that it was not a jailing offence.
Judge Lucey gave the sergeant three months to pay the fine otherwise he will be face a five-day prison sentence.
In evidence, the female officer told Judge Lucey she had to put a digital camera in a docking station in a wall-mounted cabinet in the sergeant’s office. The cabinet was located behind his desk and she moved into a two-foot gap behind him.
She did not want to disturb him and leaned towards the cabinet as he sat facing forward while he worked on a computer.
“I raised my left hand to place the camera back in the docking station,” she said, “to maintain balance I extended my right leg”. The sergeant, “raised his right arm and grabbed me on the inner upper thigh of my right thigh”, she said.
She thought he gripped her for about 30 seconds as she hopped on one leg and “screamed at the top of my voice”.
“I dropped the camera in the docking station and I left the room and I ran to be honest with you. I was in shock at what had happened,” she told state solicitor Caroline Deacy.
The officer also said she struck her superior officer to get him to let go.
“I ran into the public office and just froze.” The officer said she was still in shock and upset and went over to a colleague to ask if he had heard her screaming.
As she was doing this the sergeant “came up to me and said ‘I’d say you are some screamer in bed’”.
Choking back tears, she said: “To think that a sergeant is someone you can trust, can do this to you.”
A few hours later, the sergeant apologised for causing offence. She said she accepted his apology because she was still upset and wanted him to “go away from me”.
When she went home, she noticed she had “a slight bruising mark consistent with a thumb print” which she said was on “the fleshy part of my thigh, an inch or two away from my the genital area”.
She agreed with defence counsel Mr Breffni Gordon that she did not take a photo of the mark.
Two other gardaí heard her scream but they did not see what had happened. One said his colleague looked “distressed” and “gob-smacked” and the sergeant came from his office and whispered something to her.
Mr Gordon asked for a dismissal saying there was no forensic or corroborative evidence and the gardaí who gave evidence did not make notes at the time. There was no evidence that the action was sexual; it had to be proved that indecent touching was intentional, Mr Gordon argued.
Ms Deacy, prosecuting, submitted that the actions and the words said were “wholly indecent”. In his statement to a Garda Inspector, the sergeant had said he grabbed the woman, and he spoke to her in the presence of colleagues which she submitted was humiliating.
She also said that it occurred when he was in charge and had a duty to create a safe and supportive working environment for people in his care, including the young officer who was “finding her way”.
Later, in mitigation, Mr Gordon asked the judge to note that this conviction will result in the man loosing his job and his pension at a stage when he was on the verge of completing his service in An Garda Síochána.
Mr Gordon asked the judge to note the service the 49-year-old sergeant had given to the State, that he was supported in court by his family, was well liked and very popular.