Garda wiped baton after alleged attack, court hears

A GARDA said she saw a colleague wipe his baton and another wipe his knuckles after an alleged assault at a flat on Dublin’s Basin Street three years ago.

Garda Catherine Patterson, then a student garda, said she recalled Garda Eoin Murtagh ask for an antiseptic wipe for a graze on his knuckles and her then tutor, Garda Sean O’Leary, clean his baton with a similar wipe when they had returned to their patrol car after leaving the flat.

Garda Patterson told Tom O’Connell, prosecuting, it was suggested she might be implicated or be an accessory to a crime and would lose her job when another accused, Garda Claire Delaney, had asked about the Garda Ombudsman Commission.

Garda Patterson said that when she replied “nothing”, to a question about what she had seen, Murtagh responded: “Right answer.”

O’Leary, Murtagh, Delaney and Garda Alan Conlon have pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to forcing entry at a Basin Street Upper premises, entering as a trespasser and assaulting Owen Gaffney, 21, on February 17, 2008.

Murtagh, Conlon and Delaney also pleaded not guilty to the false imprisonment of Fidelma Gaffney on the same occasion.

Garda Patterson told Mr O’Connell that she later accompanied Delaney and Murtagh to St James’s Hospital & to see if Mr Gaffney had been brought in for treatment for any injury he may have sustained.

Hugh Hartnett, defending O’Leary, put it to her that in her original Garda Ombudsman statement she said three male gardaí went upstairs before Ms Gaffney asked to see a warrant, whereas she said in court, Ms Gaffney had asked to see a warrant and then gardaí went upstairs.

When Mr Hartnett asked her if what she’d said three weeks after the event was more likely to be accurate, she replied: “Correct.”

The trial continues.