Ferris leak part of ‘dirty tricks campaign’

SINN FÉIN claimed the first salvo of a “dirty tricks” campaign had been fired ahead of the next election after a confidential garda report linking party TD Martin Ferris to the beating of a small-time drug courier was leaked yesterday.

Mr Ferris insisted he had never been charged in relation to the incident because he was not involved and there was no evidence to the contrary. He said neither he nor his party were involved in vigilantism.

The report related to an incident in Castleisland, Co Kerry, shortly before Christmas 2001, in which a man was abducted and beaten because his captors believed him to be active in the drug trade. Mr Ferris was arrested and questioned at length in March 2002 - three months before the general election - and a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

But the DPP decided not to prosecute. Mr Ferris, meanwhile, claimed he had been assaulted while in custody, but his complaint to the Garda Complaints Board was rejected. A similar complaint by Mr Ferris’s director of elections, James Sheehan, was also rejected. No one was ever charged in relation to the punishment beating.

Yesterday, however, the Ireland on Sunday newspaper published details of a confidential report which it said had been drawn up for the Garda Complaints Board. The report detailed both Mr Ferris’s allegations of assault and the evidence gardaí had gathered against him. According to Ireland on Sunday, the latter included:

* Five separate eyewitness statements linking Mr Ferris to the attack.

* Tyre-tracks and mobile-phone records placing him at the crime scene.

* The discovery of a bat in the boot of his car as well as a note, allegedly in Mr Ferris’s handwriting, with the name and address of the victim.

The DPP’s office did not comment on the nature of the report, as its policy is not to discuss individual cases. But a spokesman for Mr Ferris said the Kerry North TD had never been charged because there was “simply no evidence” against him.