‘I thought I was doing the right thing in the eyes of the law’
Mr A, whose real identity cannot be released because of threats to his life, claimed the various arms of state had forced him to flee the country, had endangered his life, and caused him ongoing psychological trauma. He now lives abroad, and returns to his native Limerick only occasionally, mainly to visit his mother’s grave.
Writing to his solicitor last year, from the European country where he now lives, he gave a flavour of his current station.
“I still have nightmares what the outcome might have been if I stayed in Ireland,” he wrote. “I lost family and friends. I lost everything because I thought I was doing the right thing at that moment in time.”
His nightmare began one afternoon in a little post office in quiet, country village.
There were two female customers in Knocklong Post Office, when the man came in and asked for four stamps. He was of stocky build, had thick framed glasses, and spoke with a heavy Limerick accent.
Majella Ryan served him. He said “have a lovely weekend ladies”, and left. Knocklong is 35km from Limerick City on the main Mitchelstown road. It was just after 2.30pm on Friday, Aug 18, 2006.
Some minutes later, a second man entered, dressed in black, wielding a knife, and with his face covered in a balaclava. He pushed one of the women, who screamed. He turned to Ms Ryan and shouted at her to hand over the money. She had just opened the safe in order to pay one of the customers her pension. She handed over a drawer full of money. The man laid his knife down on the counter and ran out the door. The postmistress estimated about €4,200 in cash had been taken. Once he left, Ms Ryan dialled 999.
At 2.50pm, Det Garda Tim Hartnett rushed into the office of Supt James Browne and said there had been a robbery at Knocklong. Supt Browne armed himself with his gun. The two gardaí got into his personal vehicle and took off to intercept the robbers. They turned down a minor road which they reckoned the robbers might have taken.
After around 3km, they met a Toyota Corolla, with four occupants, heading for the main Bruff to Hospital road. The gardaí gave chase. Supt Browne thought he saw one of the men brandish a firearm as the Corolla stopped at a junction.
“I decided to take control of the situation, bearing in mind there were four occupants in the car who I believed to be armed,” he later related in a statement. “I feared for our lives. I discharged a warning shot into the air at the same time I shouted ‘armed gardaí’. The car came to an immediate stop and I covered the occupants of the car until Det Hartnett took them out of the car one by one.”
It turned out that the men weren’t armed with a gun. However, the biggest shock came when the driver turned to Supt Browne, and told him that he was working for the gardaí.
Mr A lived with his mother in Limerick City. He has no criminal record of any consequence. He has a passion for soccer, and was involved in the game when he was approached by a member of a prominent crime family in late 2005 or early 2006.
The criminal asked him to hold drugs in his apartment. At first, Mr A demurred, pointing out that he lived with his terminally ill mother. He consulted with his solicitor, who told him to contact the gardaí.
In a letter to gardaí in the weeks after the robbery, his solicitor wrote: “Mr A was very upset at this [being approached by the criminal]. He had been heavily involved in youth soccer and basketball in the Limerick and Shannon region for several years as a referee, organiser, and coach, and expressed his abhorrence of the drugs culture.”
Mr A consulted with Garda Pádraig Sutton, who was attached to the drugs unit, and whom Mr A knew through soccer. He indicated he would be willing to assist the gardaí.
“I then spoke with Mr A and informed him that the gardaí would appreciate [his] help but I advised him not to participate in any criminal activity,” Garda Sutton’s statement reads. “I consulted with my immediate supervisor and I subsequently completed paperwork which I transmitted to the then detective inspector in order to register Mr A as an informant.”
Registering an informant was strict procedure by 2006. In the wake of Donegal and the Morris Tribunal, where informers and their handler ran amok, all the rules were tightened. First and foremost, informants must not engage in criminal activity.
Garda Sutton’s version of events is backed up by his immediate superior officer, Sgt Con McCarthy. “I also advised Garda Sutton that Mr A should be registered as an informant and I instructed him to complete the necessary paperwork and send it to the then detective inspector for registration. I am satisfied that Garda Sutton completed the relevant form.”
The conduct of the two officers was exemplary, according to Mr A’s solicitor. “Mr A advised me that Garda Sutton and Sgt McCarthy put absolutely no pressure on him and left it entirely up to himself whether or not he proceeded to assist them.” Mr A also told his solicitor that “any money he received he wanted to hand over to the gardaí”, according to the correspondence.
Mr A didn’t turn out to be a major crime buster. From time to time, he told Garda Sutton about plans he’d been told to have him store drugs, but very little came of it. “While initial indications were that Mr A would be a valuable source, the most that was provided by him was low grade intelligence,” Sgt McCarthy reported.
Two days before the robbery, Mr A contacted Garda Sutton by phone. The garda and Sgt McCarthy were at Kerry Airport, monitoring a flight. Mr A said he had been asked whether he had an artic truck licence. Back at Henry St Garda Station, Sutton filled the detective inspector in on the contact. There was further contact the following day. Mr A had been told he would be meeting somebody to pick up drugs. He also contacted his solicitor that day, who told him to make sure he passed on the information to the proper authorities.
Then, around 12pm on Aug 18, Mr A rang his Garda contact again to say he was told he had been asked to go into the country to view a possible collection of drugs. The next Garda Sutton knew about his informant was when he received a call after 3pm from Bruff Garda Station to say Mr A was asking for him.
The getaway car was registered to the driver, Mr A. Once he was arrested and brought to Bruff Garda Station, he outlined his role in the robbery and his role as an informant. He directed the gardaí to where some of the stolen money had been dumped along the road.
The money was recovered, and produced in the questioning of the three other suspects.
Garda Sutton was sent for, and he largely backed up Mr A’s claims. Sgt McCarthy also confirmed the bulk of the story.
Mr A refused to answer further questions in custody, but his solicitor subsequently related in a letter to the gardaí what, according to Mr A, had occurred. After meeting the men that morning, he was told they were going out into the country. “It appears that one of the men he met wished to drive Mr A’s car but Mr A refused to let him drive, as he could not prove that he was insured.! I also understand that the men he met took his mobile telephone from him at the outset.
“Although it is almost certainly unnecessary to so do, I would point out at this juncture that if Mr A had known that there was to be a robbery, he would hardly have agreed to use his own vehicle registered in his name and insist on actually driving it.”
He drove to Knocklong as instructed, the solicitor related: “Mr A was asked to go in and buy four stamps. I understand that he was puzzled but agreed. When he came out he was asked who was inside and he replied in words to the effect ‘just a few customers’, whereupon one of the men in the car put on a balaclava and entered the post office. Shortly afterwards, that man exited the post office and Mr A was ordered to drive away.”
The four men were held for 12 hours. Ordinarily, if Mr A had been registered as an informant, he would have received protection thereafter, with a view to entering the Witness Protection Programme. But there was a dispute over his status. While his garda handler, Garda Sutton, and Sgt McCarthy were under the impression that everything had been done by the book, a conflict arose further up the chain.
Det Insp Declan Mulcahy swore a statement in which he said Garda Sutton and Sgt McCarthy had approached him two days before the robbery. Garda Sutton said he had an informant who had been asked to do a job. At that point, it looked like the job in question was moving drugs.
“Garda Sutton did not provide the name of this informant and I advised him that it would require a report on the matter so the same could be forwarded to CHIS [the new informant system in the force] to have this person looked at with a possibility to being registered. I further advised him that we could not allow a job to run anymore as times had changed.”
This was months after he had completed the paperwork to have Mr A registered, according to Garda Sutton. Yet, now it appeared as if the management further up the force had little or no knowledge of Mr A’s existence. Mr A was not registered as an informant. If he had been, the robbery would have been a source of embarrassment for the force. After Donegal, all was supposed to have changed. A case such as this, with an informant involved in an armed robbery, would have raised serious questions about how much had changed. As Mr A wasn’t a registered informant, he was treated as just another suspected criminal. All four men were released and a file sent to the DPP.
Once released, Mr A immediately knew he was in danger. His solicitor subsequently told how things unfolded. “He was approached by the other men with him on the day on a number of occasions by directly and also, I understand, by intermediaries, with questions as to what he said to the gardaí. They were aware that the money and other items that were dumped had been located and recovered by the gardaí from their own period in custody and were concerned as to how it had happened.”
Mr A told them that when he had been brought to the scene, other Garda cars were already there and the loot already discovered.
“Whilst they initially appeared to believe him, he instructed me that he was contacted subsequently and told in no uncertain terms that he would not live to give evidence in any trial.”
His first instinct was to run. He contacted his solicitor and Garda Sutton and related that he had to leave the country. He left a forwarding address in Europe with his solicitor, which he said should be passed onto the gardaí if they wanted it.
On Aug 30, he was arrested at Dublin Airport en route to board a flight bound for a European city. He was taken into custody and charged with the robbery. The other three men were also charged.
A book of evidence was compiled by the DPP, and sent to all the defendants. Included in the book were statements by Garda Sutton, Sgt McCarthy, and Insp Mulcahy, all of which referred to Mr A’s role as an informant. Effectively, the statements confirmed Mr A had for some time worked as an informant, that he had been passing on information for months, and had given details of where the stolen money had been dumped.
The release of this information put Mr A’s life in immediate danger. It is unclear which agency was culpable.
The gardaí may or may not have informed the DPP of the sensitivity involved in the three statements. It is unclear whether on not the DPP was fully aware of the implications of including the statements. One way or another, the State was responsible for recklessly endangering the life of one of its citizens, who, in one form or another, was actually working with the gardaí.
By the time the book was released, Mr A, had already left town in fear for his life. Due to his disputed status, he got no help from the gardaí. He initially moved to Shannon, but when the house owner became aware he was charged with armed robbery, he was no longer welcome.
He relocated to a hostel for the homeless in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. On Nov 1, he left his lodgings to make his way to an internet café. As he was walking under an archway leading to Kenyon St in the town, he observed two men dressed as workmen. “One of these pointed in my direction with his left hand,” Mr A related in a statement to the gardaí.
“I believe he was letting me believe he was holding a gun. He stood opposite me on the opposite of Kenyon St with his left hand in the air and his thumb up like a hammer of a gun and had his finger pointed at me like the barrel of a gun.”
Mr A related that he knew one of the men “from somewhere”, but he couldn’t put a name to the face.
On Oct 10, 2007, the case against Mr A was effectively dropped when the DPP entered a nolle prosequi, meaning it wasn’t proceeding. The DPP did likewise for Mr A’s three co-accused. Despite there being overwhelming evidence that these had been party to a violent post office robbery with a knife, they walked free with the presumption of innocence.
Mr A relocated to Europe, knowing he could never live in his native city again. He brought a civil action against the State, including the gardaí and the DPP. Unusually for actions of this nature, the State admitted culpability, but still denied that it had placed his life in danger.
A medical report compiled by a doctor who treated Mr A over the years since the robbery illustrated how his health had been affected. He was prescribed anti-anxiety drugs, and sleeping tablets in 2007, but the doctor noted: “I only prescribed small doses of medication as I was concerned for his mental state and suicidal risk, even though he claimed not be suicidal at that time.”
Mr A returned to the doctor on a visit home from abroad in 2010. “He reported that he was still very anxious especially when he saw any law enforcement officers or policemen... He had no trust of people and was quite paranoid when he was out and about... He informed me that he was returning to Ireland every three or four months for approximately two days at a time.
“He would visit his mother’s grave and contact his solicitor. He avoided all contact with his Limerick family and friends. He was always very anxious before his flight home. He would experience sleepless nights and even vomit with anxiety.”
Mr A gave a glimpse into the life that haunts him now in a correspondence with his solicitor last year.
“When all this started almost five years ago, the type of work I did was mostly part-time was on Fás schemes I really believe there would be no loss of earnings in my opinion as you know I was heavily involved in sports, coaching basketball in Shannon and being a soccer referee. All that changed because I thought I was doing the right thing in the eyes of the law and public safety.
“The year I went through when I was in Ireland I’ll never forget it and I’ll bring it to my grave. I still have nightmares what the outcome might have been if I stayed in Ireland.”
Last month, a settlement was agreed in the case of Mr A versus Ireland, the Attorney General, the Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform, the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, and the DPP.
Had the case gone to hearing, it would undoubtedly have caused huge embarrassment to the DPP and the gardaí.
However, the Irish Examiner understands Mr A was anxious to put the whole thing behind him, rather than maximise his compensation.
Today, he lives abroad with little prospect — if any — of ever returning home.
