Marie Farrell yesterday insisted she was telling the truth when she told a Garda inquiry a detective sergeant apologised to her over an incident in which she alleged he exposed himself to her before saying words to the effect “fitting up” journalist Ian Bailey was a “turn on”.

Marie Farrell told a High Court jury that Det Garda Jim Fitzgerald stripped naked and asked her for sex while she was looking after a house in West Cork.

A Limerick woman, whose brother was convicted of a double murder, received a fractured skull and was stabbed in the face when she was set upon by a gang of other women on the doorsteps of the Limerick district courthouse.

A DISTRICT judge yesterday described as “dispiriting” the way in which people under the influence of drugs were sometimes given priority in emergency departments ahead of victims of car accidents.

A chronic drug addict who forced his way into a family home and stabbed a man in front of his wife has been given a 12-year sentence for this offence as well as a spate of armed robberies and storing explosives for a criminal.

THOUSANDS of people are to be recruited for a new text-messaging service, which gardaí hope will aid them further in their fight against criminals.

A convicted robber who returned a wedding ring to his neighbour after he had stolen it from his house some weeks previously has been sentenced to four years in prison for the burglary.

A PROJECT, believed to be the first of its type in the county, will see some community alert and neighbourhood watch schemes go hi-tech, with near instantaneous information on crime being made available by gardaí through multiple text messaging.

A drug addict who slashed a man eight times with a knife after breaking into his house in Swords has been jailed for seven years by Judge Michael White at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

A pensioner who was holding on to heroin worth €150,000 for a drug-dealer has had his sentence adjourned until October 25 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Two senior gardai have been chosen for the UN fact-finding mission that is due to go to Jenin in the West Bank.