Seven gardaí face assault charges

SEVEN gardaí are to be charged with assault following this year’s May Day rally in Dublin, it was confirmed last night.

If found guilty, six of the officers could be jailed for up to five years, while the seventh, who faces lesser charges, could be imprisoned for six months. All seven gardaí are working in Dublin and have been confined to indoor duties pending the outcome of the proceedings.

A garda spokesman said the decision to press charges followed an internal investigation carried out by Assistant Commissioner Tony Hickey.

Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne ordered the investigation following disturbances during the Reclaim the Streets march on May 6. The seven gardaí are to appear in court next January.

This news comes on one of the bleakest days in the history of the Garda Síochana.

Yesterday a tribunal into garda corruption in Donegal heard how a detective planted a shotgun on Travellers’ land ahead of a garda search of the area.

Detective Sergeant John White, who claims an informer gave him crucial information about Real IRA activity ahead of the Omagh atrocity, left the gun close to a Travellers’ camp so it would be found during a search the following day, his former partner told the Morris Tribunal.

It was alleged Det White expertly engineered this search and arrest of seven Travellers, connecting them to robberies on the west coast and the death of an elderly man. Evidence given by Det White’s former colleague, Detective Garda Thomas Kilcoyne, concerns the arrest and detention of the Travellers in Burnfoot, Co Donegal, following the search on May 24, 1998.

Det Kilcoyne alleges he was with his colleague when the shotgun was planted.

“I was with Sergeant White when he told me he had a sawn-off shotgun that he was going to place it at the caravan site in Burnfoot,” he said. Det Kilcoyne said Sergeant White tested the gun before the pair drove on to the area.

“We then walked towards the Griannan Farm. He was carrying the gun in a black zipper briefcase ... When we got to the edge of the farm buildings, I felt sick. I felt like a criminal. I felt everything in my head was telling me I shouldn’t be here, to get out, but I felt it had gone too far and I had no control of events.”

Det White, though he denied it, is alleged to have engineered the search by claiming two Travellers based in Dublin had given him information that the Burnfoot Travellers had been involved in the aggravated burglary and murder of Eddie Fitzmaurice, in Charlestown, Mayo, earlier that month. His informants apparently had told him there was a gun on the land for the Travellers’ protection. Det White is said to have persuaded his superiors there were reasonable grounds for a search.

The informants were later identified, interviewed and denied linking people in the camp to the Fitzmaurice killing.