Discipline cases against gardaí doubled last year, watchdog reports

A GARDA was deducted four weeks pay last year for sexually harassing a minor by making “inappropriate” gestures of a sexual nature towards her, the garda watchdog said yesterday.

The Garda Complaints Board (GCB) said another garda was reprimanded for hitting a person across the back of the head and grabbing him by the groin.

Publishing its 2004 annual report, the GCB report said the number of discipline cases taken against gardaí more than doubled last year.

Minor discipline cases jumped from 13 in 2003 to 31 in 2004, while suspected serious discipline cases rose from 14 to 27.

Other serious cases involving breach of discipline adjudicated on last year include:

A garda who was docked four weeks pay for using unnecessary violence by hitting a person on the legs with a baton and by unnecessarily restraining the same person with handcuffs.

A garda who was deducted two weeks pay for abuse of authority for arresting a person without reasonable cause and for subjecting the person to a drugs search without reasonable cause.

A garda who was docked four weeks' pay for neglect of duty for failing to carry out a proper investigation of an alleged assault on a person after taking a statement from that person.

GCB chairman Gordon Holmes described as "mad" the current situation whereby the GCB had no intermediate penalty to choose from between docking a member a maximum of four weeks' pay and the extreme penalty of dismissal.

He said a major problem with the GCB was that it had no power to compel gardaí to answer questions.

"This power was never given to the Board and the result was that frequently investigations were met with a wall of silence a problem internationally known as 'The Blue Wall'."

He also criticised gardaí for failing to solve complaints through informal resolution. He said the Director of Public Prosecutions often could not take cases against gardaí because it received the file from the GCB after the six-month deadline for summary prosecutions had passed.

Mr Holmes said some investigating officers deliberately delayed sending their report for this reason.

He expressed concern at a case where a witness statement made by Fianna Fáil TD and Environment Minister Dick Roche supporting a claim by a teenager that he was assaulted by gardaí was never included in the investigating file sent to the GCB and the DPP.

He said he was "not satisfied" with the response from the Garda Commissioner regarding the matter.

He said he supported Justice Minister Michael McDowell's three-person Garda Ombudsman Commission, saying is lessened personality conflicts with garda management.

Mr Holmes said discipline in the force was "quite good" overall and that the situation in Donegal was not endemic through the force. "Morale in the force is having a bit of a battering at the moment, because of Morris, and presumably because of the Abbeylara Inquiry. I think the force will weather that without any great problems."

Mr McDowell rejected claims the Garda Ombudsman would have less powers than the Northern Ireland Ombudsman.