Garda chief must face challenges head on

Garda chief must face challenges head on Drew Harris’s Christmas got off to a bad start. On December 19 the Garda commissioner received notification that one of his senior officers was to be the subject of a criminal investigation.

The notice came from the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC).

Harris is in the job since last September, but already the most senior civilian in the force, head of human resources John Barrett, has been suspended from duty. Now a senior officer is to be investigated for alleged abuse of public office.

The GSOC investigation centres on the alleged treatment meted out to a rank-and-file member. The most grievous allegation is that this member was suspended from duty maliciously.

Suspension from duty is a severe measure, taken only in the most extreme circumstances. More often than not it is a precursor to dismissal. It also attracts a stain on the character of a law enforcement officer, particularly among colleagues.

The member in question was suspended for two months between January and March 2018 following an incident in a hotel. During his suspension, he spent most of the time in England in order to avoid embarrassment for his family or having to face colleagues in any setting.

He returned to work after being cleared of any wrongdoing, but a major question hangs over why he was suspended.

The member in question was also not just an average garda who happened to be caught up in an incident in a hotel.

He had come to the attention of Garda management over the last five years or so in his persistent attempts to have complaints against senior officers investigated.

He has also been represented by his staff organisation in this regard and been in contact with politicians, GSOC, and the Policing Authority over it.

On a number of occasions he has attempted to walk away from his complaints and resume his career but has found his path blocked, as if, he believes, he’s now a marked man among certain elements.

On one occasion, he was actually driving to the Garda Training College in Templemore to restart his career in a new posting when he got a call telling him to turn back.

The past was not going to leave him alone.

Member A does not want to be identified. He was a latecomer to the gardaí, entering the training college in his late 20s, having left another professional career.

He was stationed to the city posting where he got on well. Then, some 18 months after the posting, he began having problems with a sergeant in the station.

He wasn’t alone in this respect. The Irish Examiner has seen written testimonies from other members who also had issues with this sergeant.

The issues raised were similar to those Member A claimed to have experienced. They involved alleged bullying, the use of inappropriate language, shouting, and the issuing of insults. Most of those testimonies did not result in formal complaints, although at least one ended in mediation between the sergeant and a member.

An independent source in the force described the sergeant in question as “an old-style guard from another era”, which can be viewed positively or negatively.

Member A alleges he was bullied by the sergeant. (In time, his complaint in this regard would be upheld). He also alleged he was assaulted twice by the sergeant. In the first incident, the sergeant knocked him back in the locker room in the station using his shoulder. The sergeant says this was a “bump”.

Member A says he was thrown back onto chairs by the force. The assault allegation was not upheld.

There was a second alleged incident, but no witnesses — this allegation was not upheld. In 2012 both parties were asked to attend mediation in the company of an inspector and superintendent.

Member A was not happy with the outcome and claimed a report of it misrepresented what had occurred and there had been no satisfactory resolution as far as he was concerned. In support of his claim, he produced a recording he had secretly made at the meeting.

A transcript of the recording — submitted to Garda management — highlighted what Member A considered a threat.

“You are only going to make enemies for yourself,” the superintendent present is reported on the transcript as saying.

Be careful of that. And I’d be very concerned about having the rest of the fellas backing you up as well because I don’t think that is going to happen.

None of the parties have challenged the accuracy of the transcript of the recording, but the superintendent denies that he made any threat. At one point, it was suggested to Member A that something was “lost in the language”.

Unhappy with the way it was dealt with, Member A made a formal complaint.

Thus began a long odyssey which took nearly five years to complete. The policy on bullying requires action within 30 days, and allows another 30 for an appeal. What distinguished Member A was his refusal to give up on what he saw as an important and principled issue.

Member A’s staff association, the Garda Representative Association, believed he was getting the run-around. In internal GRA

correspondence, seen by the Irish Examiner, the mediation attempt from September 2012 was described as “crude”.

One report sent in 2015 within the GRA set out the case: “The documentation and report submitted give rise to issues of the gravest import in terms of the working environment at (named station) and particularly in relation to the right of Garda (Member A) and others to dignity in the workplace.

“The scenario depicted in the reports make it incumbent on Garda management to hold a full, proactive, expeditious, and impartial investigation of all aspects of the case. I am not reassured from what I have seen thus far that this has been the case. Some of the processes already involved, especially mediation, cannot by any barometer be described as due process or fair procedure. From the information available it was imbalanced, biased, and inhumane with the dice very much stacked against the complainant.”

Underlying the complaint was an old problem within An Garda Síochána, which has been repeatedly referenced in tribunal and statutory reports. When a member of ordinary rank — or in some instances sergeant rank — are pitted against superior officers, there will in all likelihood be only one outcome irrespective of right, wrong, or facts.

In 2014, when Member A’s case was ongoing, he was subjected to a disciplinary inquiry himself. After an investigation, it was deemed he had no case to answer. He believes this was linked to his bullying claim.

Along the way, he tried to resume his career. At one point he applied for a specialist post but in the interview he was asked about his mental health. This was related to a period in which he had been out sick with stress as a result of the alleged bullying.

He felt the question was unfair. He appealed to the director of human resources, Mr Barrett, and he was later informed he was being accepted for the assessment training for the unit.

On the night he was driving to Templemore to begin training, he was told to turn back. There had been an objection to the manner in which his selection had been conducted.

Finally, in 2018, five years after the initial incidents, he got word that the process was at an end. The sergeant was found to have bullied him, but had appealed.

This appeal was considered by assistant commissioner John O’Driscoll but rejected.

Mr O’Driscoll reported that the finding that the sergeant had engaged in bullying “to be the appropriate conclusion to reach”. The AC also found that the inspector and superintendent whose conduct Member A had complained of had not followed the proper procedure.

The sergeant was instructed to undertake a course in order to address any issues he may have had — five years previously — with bullying.

The finding about a failure to follow procedure was not serious enough to warrant a consequence.

Through the whole process, there was no definitive resolution about Member A’s complaint that what he recorded at the 2012 mediation meeting was in conflict with the report compiled by the officers present.