Roche left out of Garda complaint file

The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, has said he was "astonished" that a statement he made about a case of alleged Garda brutality was removed from a file by gardaí before it was sent to the Garda Complaints Board and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The complaints board only became aware of the existence of the Minister's statement when Mr Roche was last year interviewed about the case on a special RTÉ Prime Time programme on An Garda Síochána.

"I was very, very annoyed about it. I was astonished. You'd be less than human if you weren't annoyed about something like that," Mr Roche told The Irish Times last night.

The case is to be highlighted in the annual report of the Garda Complaints Board, which is to be published today.

In September 2000 a constituent of Mr Roche came to him alleging he had been beaten by gardaí the previous night following a disturbance at a birthday party at a hotel in Dublin's south inner city.

Michael Gaffney (18) from Bray, showed Mr Roche bruises and other marks on his body.

On Prime Time on January 2004 Mr Roche said the injuries were "tantamount to torture".

"He had injuries to his head, he had injuries to his body," Mr Roche said. "He had bruising and had a dreadfully nasty injury right under his chin."

It was a "shocking example of mistreatment" and he was "sickened" and angered by Mr Gaffney's injuries.

The Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, responded saying the matter had been investigated by the Garda Complaints Board.

The board had passed it to the DPP, who had recommended no action be taken against gardaí.

However, it has now emerged that a lengthy statement drawn up by Mr Roche was taken out of the file which was sent to the complaints board and the DPP. Mr Gaffney was later prosecuted for assaulting gardaí but the case failed after Mr Roche gave evidence in court.

The Irish Times has established that Mr Roche sent a statement and a complaint at the time of the attack to the then minister for justice, John O'Donoghue. Mr O'Donoghue sent this to the office of the then Garda commissioner, Pat Byrne.

Mr Byrne appointed an investigating officer to gather statements and other evidence. This was then sent to the Garda Complaints Board in a file. However, the investigating officer decided to exclude Mr Roche's statement from the file.

When the Garda Complaints Board later queried this, it was told Mr Roche's statement contained details that were included in other witness statements and for this reason it was not needed.

The complaints board took the matter up with Mr Conroy, who has since drawn up a protocol for all gardaí appointed by him to gather evidence in cases being examined by the Garda Complaints Board.