Gardaí 'wrong' to deny Carthy plea for cigarettes

GARDAÍ were wrong to deny John Carthy's request for cigarettes during the armed stand-off that led to his death, a psychiatrist told the tribunal.

Dr David Shanley, who was Mr Carthy's psychiatrist for five years before he died, said the young plasterer smoked about 30 cigarettes a day and up to 50 in times of stress. Being deprived of them would have made him more tense and irritable and harder to communicate with.

He understood the strategy of using the request as a bargaining tool, but said it would have diffused the situation and demonstrated goodwill if the gardaí had given him the cigarettes without conditions.

"I don't think it was fair to use it as a negotiating weapon in the siege," he said. Dr Shanley made his comments in a series of critical observations about the garda operation at Abbeylara, Co Longford, on April 19/20 2000 when Mr Carthy, 27, held gardaí at bay with a shotgun for 25 hours in his mother's house before he was shot dead by members of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU).

Margaret Nurney SC, barrister for 36 gardaí up to inspector rank who were part of the operation, tackled Dr Shanley over his comments, asking if it was not the case that gardaí could not deliver the cigarettes because Mr Carthy was firing off rounds from his shotgun.

Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Robert Barr intervened to point out that statements to the inquiry recorded that one garda got close enough to the house to be able to look in the window and see Mr Carthy either sleeping or resting on a sofa.

"If a garda could get that close, he could have left a few packets of cigarettes on the window sill. Could they not," he asked. Dr Shanley said gardaí should have imposed a media blackout to stop Mr Carthy hearing broadcasts about himself, as the reports would have "escalated his psychiatric position." He also questioned the wisdom of garda negotiator Det Sgt Michael Jackson introducing himself to Mr Carthy as a garda given his known distrust of the force.

It was noted that Det Sgt Jackson announced himself through a loud hailer, saying: "This is Mick, I'm here to help, I'm with the gardaí." "To introduce yourself as Mick from the gardaí might well have raised his (Mr Carthy's) hackles. Even saying that would have created difficulties from the start," said Dr Shanley.

"It would seem as if the whole of the gardaí and the ERU were ganging up on this young man with a psychiatric illness holed up in his parents' house," he said. "We know that John Carthy had a difficulty with the local police and this to me would increase this young man's anxiety and fear and it might also create a sense of feeling: it's me, John Carthy, versus the establishment, the police."

Dr Shanley also queried why Mr Carthy's sister, Marie, was not allowed try to talk to him given that she was very close to him and might have been able to help, and he said he, too, had been almost an hour in a garda car waiting to talk to Mr Carthy, but was held back from doing so until it was too late. I did feel that there was a long delay and that perhaps I might have been able to talk to him earlier."

Earlier, Dr Shanley had defended his decision to write a letter of support for Mr Carthy declaring him fit to retrieve his shotgun from the gardaí. He said he would have notified gardaí if there had a "dramatic change" in his psychiatric condition, but to have told them of "every high and low" would have been an intrusion into his privacy and damaging to his self-esteem.