Witness knew the Gardaí were 'up to something', assault trial hears

A Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury has listened to an audio recording of a phone call to the mother of a young man accusing four gardaí of assault at their flat.

Mr Zachary Purcell told Mr Patrick McGrath BL, prosecuting (with Mr Tom O’Connell SC), that he rang Ms Fidelma Gaffney when her son didn’t pick up his mobile and recorded the audio from that call until the memory on his phone cut out.

He said he gave the recording on a memory stick to a Garda Ombudsman Commission official in the subsequent investigation and later handed in his phone.

Gardaí Sean O’Leary, Eoin Murtagh, Alan Conlon and Claire Delaney have pleaded not guilty to forcing entry to a premises at Basin Street Upper, entering as a trespasser and assaulting Mr Owen Gaffney (aged 21) causing him harm on February 17, 2008.

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

Mr Purcell told Mr McGrath that Mr Gaffney went home after getting back from a football match earlier that day, leaving him and a number of youths on a small pitch near the Basin Street flats.

The witness said he spotted about two or three marked and unmarked garda cars circling the complex while he was on the football pitch.

Mr Purcell said these cars completed four or five laps of the complex, before heading off and returning with other garda vehicles in the direction of Mr Gaffney’s building.

He said he saw five or six Gardaí head towards these flats and recognised Gda O’Leary, Murtagh and Delaney in their number.

He said he saw all these Gardaí in uniform and noticed Gda O’Leary wearing a stab-proof vest.

Mr Purcell told Mr McGrath that he knew the Gardaí were “up to something” from the way they had been driving around the flat complex, so he first rang Mr Gaffney and then Ms Gaffney when her son didn’t answer.

He said he saw four Gardaí go into Mr Gaffney’s home and two standing outside.

Mr Purcell said he went to Mr Gaffney’s home after all Gardaí had left the area and saw his friend “disorientated” with marks on his body and a bloody nose.

Mr Purcell will begin his cross-examination tomorrow.

Earlier, Mr Damien Tynan told Mr O’Connell that he had been watching television in the flat when his partner, Ms Gaffney, got a phone call about Gardaí coming to the premises.

He said he was behind Ms Gaffney when she opened the door to about two or three Gardaí but returned to the living room and heard a male shout: “We have a warrant.”

Mr Tynon said he walked back into the hall when he heard Ms Gaffney shouting his name from the bathroom and saw a male garda holding its door shut.

He said a female garda shouted down to him “You stay there” when he asked what was going on.

Mr Hugh Hartnett SC, defending Gda O’Leary, put it to Mr Tynon that he said he had seen “at least 12 Gardaí" heading upstairs in his Garda Ombudsman Commission statement and that “before that I was standing in the living room looking through the open door into the hall.”

Counsel asked the witness to explain why he told the jury he had been in the hall from the beginning.

Mr Tynon told Mr Hartnett that he had been in the hall, returned to the living room and went back into the hall when he heard Ms Gaffney screaming.

Mr Conor Devally SC, defending Gda Murtagh, put it to the witness that his statement read like he had only been in the hall once.

He asked Mr Tynon would his recollection have been clearer a few days after the event, to which the witness replied: “No.”

Mr Tynon agreed he had told the Ombudsman he had been closer to the bottom of the stairs when he went out but said he saw through the banister and had a view of a garda holding the bathroom door shut.

Mr Devally suggested that from a photo of the staircase he might have been able to see through the banisters if he had been seven feet tall.

Mr Tynon replied: “I could see through the banisters, I know what I saw.”

He agreed he was a drinker and had used drugs but denied Mr Devally’s suggestion that because of this lifestyle his memory “is incredibly frail.”

He denied when Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, defending Gda Delaney, suggested to him that the person who had told him to stay where he was had been male instead of female.

Another witness, Mr John Purcell, told Mr McGrath that he took photographs of Mr Gaffney on a disposable camera handed to him by Ms Gaffney after the alleged incident.

He said he had spent the ten minutes it took Ms Gaffney to buy the camera at a local store trying to calm her son down.

The witness said Mr Gaffney had been “agitated” and “jumping around” with “blood streaming down his nose, marks on his arm and marks on his back.”

He said he failed to stop the bleeding with tissues.

The trial continues before Judge Desmond Hogan and a jury of six men and six women.