Garda ‘devastated’ when charged in taxi fare row

A Garda with more than 30 years service in the force yesterday told the High Court he was devastated to be charged after he was arrested while off-duty when he queried a taxi fare.

Garda Oliver Cully, who works on protection duty at Áras an Uachtaráin, said he was later cleared and found not guilty in the District Court of all charges, including drunkenness and breach of the peace.

“If convicted it was inevitable I would lose my job. It devastated me,” he said, breaking down briefly in the witness box.

“It took me over completely. I have suffered. It took a year before it came to court. It was maximum pressure for me. I fought it to the last. I felt there was a good chance the gardaí would be believed. I felt it would finish me.”

Gda Cully has sued the State claiming he was assaulted, unlawfully arrested, falsely imprisoned, and maliciously prosecuted as a result of the incident over the taxi fare in the early hours of April 24, 2004.

He is also claiming he was subjected to emotional suffering. The State defendants have denied all the claims and contend Gda Cully was lawfully arrested and that everything was done properly and within the law.

The jury has already heard how Gda Cully hailed a taxi after being at a night club in Dublin City and when he was told it would be €35 for the journey to his home in Lucan, he said he would pay what was on the meter and he thought he was being overcharged. The taxi driver drove to two gardaí standing nearby.

Gda Cully has alleged he was told to get out of the taxi by a garda and later, when he went to walk away, he was rugby tackled to the ground by other gardaí, handcuffed, and arrested.

On the second day of the case yesterday, Gda Cully told the court he was out of work for a year after the alleged incident and found it difficult to be as good a father as he had been.

“I was consumed by this. I had a huge desire to right what was wrong,” he said.

Asked by his counsel, Martin Giblin, what was it like going from being an insider to an outsider in the gardaí, Gda Cully said it was very different, particularly in relation to the authorities in the gardaí.

He said he wanted to be vindicated.

Hugh Hartnett, counsel for the State, put it to Gda Cully that a number of garda will say he was heavily intoxicated, aggressive, and foul mouthed on the night. Gda Cully said he was not intoxicated and he would have an issue with what the gardaí are saying and they were wrong.

He said he had rebuked a couple of gardaí who he said were abusive to him and that is why he was arrested. He had said he would report them and the taxi man.

The case before Mr Justice Colm MacEocaidh continues today.