Garda hit protester, but 'not in head', court told

A Garda accused of assaulting a protester at the 2002 "Reclaim the Streets" march in Dublin has claimed he was justified in striking a protester three times in the "upper body" but denies he ever hit a protester in the head.

Garda Paul Tallon of Mountjoy Station, Dublin insisted from the witness box on day seven of his trial at the Circuit Criminal Court that he did not hit protester Fergal Leddy on the head. He said he was satisfied that the person he did strike with his baton was not hit on the head.

Garda Tallon has pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Mr Leddy on May 6, 2002.

He refused to confirm that the person seen striking a protester in aerial video footage was him and would only say "I accept that it is a possibility that the person is me".

"I am admitting that I did use my baton against a protester that day," he said but insisted he struck the person in the "upper body" not the head.

"The person I hit, I hit on the upper body. The person I hit did not bleed. I did not hit a person on the head," he added.

"I didn’t think I had done anything wrong that day. As far as I was concerned, all I had done was protect a colleague," he said under cross-examination.

He said he felt that he had acted "within the regulations of the law" and told Mr Thomas O’Connell SC, prosecuting: "Yes, I was justified in my actions, yes."

He accepted that nobody had given him an order to draw his baton that day or that anyone blew a whistle to signal permission to draw batons.

Earlier the court heard that under Garda regulations members may draw their batons on a disorderly crowd without the permission of an officer if they believe themselves likely to be over-powered.

He told his defence counsel Mr Martin Giblin SC that he came on patrol as a plain-clothes Garda with the Street Crime Unit at 6pm that evening and answered an "urgent assistance call" from gardaí at the scene on Dame Street.

He said when he arrived he saw a group of "about three or four hundred people running about chaotically and a small number of gardaí".

He said the scene appeared to be one of "disorder" with "gardaí in isolated pockets trying to control the situation".

Garda Tallon told the court that he didn’t see any senior officers trying to take control and said it was "a good five minutes" before uniformed gardaí received orders on the situation.

He told Mr Giblin that he used his baton in two incidents that evening. In the first incident he said he used his baton to warn off a protestor who "swung a punch" at him.

In the second incident, he admitted he struck a protestor three times. "I saw a colleague in grave difficulty, there was a protestor who had him by the neck," said Garda Tallon.

"There was a crowd approaching both of us. I went over to intervene, I feared the Garda had no way to defend himself," he said.

"I came from behind the person that was holding the guard by the neck. I held on to the person’s shirt and told him to let go twice," said Garda Tallon.

"The Garda concerned could not defend himself. I felt I had no other option but to draw my baton and use it," the court heard.

When Mr Giblin asked him why he used it, Garda Tallon replied: "In order for him to release his grip from the guard."

"I initially struck him once on the upper arm. When he didn’t let go I hit him another time," he said, adding that he struck the protester a third time.

He denied that he struck the protester on the head: "It’s not in my nature to strike someone on the head, you can cause serious injuries," Garda Tallon told his defence counsel.

He said he then put the protester on the ground in order to arrest him for assaulting a Garda but due to the "aggressive demeanour" of the approaching crowd he released the man, who ran off into the crowd.

Garda Tallon then said the first information he received that he was being investigated for his use of the baton that day came several months later in 2002.

He was formerly charged with assaulting Mr Leddy in January 2003.

Under cross-examination by prosecuting counsel Mr O’Connell, Garda Tallon said he was "not 100% certain that Mr Leddy is the person" he struck on May 6 2002.

The prosecution and defence cases have closed and both sides will give their closing speeches before Judge Yvonne Murphy tomorrow.