Limerick Garda traffic trial: Jury sent home for weekend

At 4.09pm, the foreman of the jury told Judge Roderick Maguire they had not reached a verdict and that they would be willing to return to court on Monday to resume their deliberations.

Judge Maguire told the jury to go home for the weekend and return at 9.30am Monday.

Earlier the jury heard closing submissions from barristers for all five accused, who agreed that the investigation by the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (GNBCI) and subsequent prosecution of the five accused was a “nonsense”.

The accused retired superintendent, Eamon O’Neill, is charged with 27 counts of engaging in conduct tending or intended to pervert the course of justice when he was a serving in the mid west region between 2017 and 2019.

Mr O’Neill, Sergeant Anne Marie Hassett, Sergeant Michelle Leahy, Garda Colm Geary, and Garda Tom McGlinchey have denied a total of 39 counts of unlawfully interfering in potential or pending prosecutions involving 26 motorists.

Prosecution's case

The prosecution’s case, led by senior counsel Carl Hanahoe, is that Mr O’Neill gave “preferential” treatment to people he knew or had a close connection with in trying to get them off potential or pending road traffic prosecutions.

Mr Hanahoe has argued that “preference” was entirely different to “discretion”, which the court heard was a power available to gardaí when using their own judgment on whether to pursue a prosecution.

Mr Hanahoe has argued that local superintendent’s lost the ability to cancel traffic tickets in 2014 when this power was reassigned to a cancelling authority in Thurles, Co Tipperary, after the much-publicised penalty points scandal that was unearthed by garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

Mr Hanahoe told the jury that the main reason for attempts to get the motorists off was Mr O’Neill’s friendship or close connection with the individuals — Mr Hanahoe said these people were not on trial.

Mr Hanahoe produced text messages in court which he said clearly showed that Mr O’Neill was using his direct or indirect connection with the motorists as the reason for quashing their pending or potential prosecutions.

It was a case of “who you are”, said Mr Hanahoe, and that Mr O’Neill allowed this “preference” and his “friendship” with others to dictate “who ought to be prosecuted”.

Mr Hanahoe said the four serving Garda accused, who had no connection to the cases, involved themselves by trying to “persuade” other gardaí not to prosecute the motorist, or in the case of Sgt Leahy, had some of the cases struck out in court. Mr Hanahoe told the jury: 

The evidence is clear: What was happening was preference, pure and simple, and the appropriate verdict on all counts is guilty. 

Mr O'Neill's defence closing speech

In his closing speech, Felix McEnroy, for Mr O’Neill, said experienced gardaí, including retired assistant Garda commissioner Fintan Fanning and retired chief superintendent Gerry Mahon, had given evidence at the trial of their concern over reliance on text messages in a Garda probe.

Mr McEnroy said when Mr Mahon found out about the GNBCI probe into Mr O’Neill, he was so “concerned” that he wrote a 17-page letter to the then Garda commissioner and another letter to the then deputy commissioner “outlying his serious misgivings”.

Mr McEnroy suggested to the jury they were “not getting the whole story” from the prosecution and that a previous GNBCI investigation into Mr O’Neill, in respect of completely separate allegations not before the court, ”went nowhere”.

“They don't want me to talk about that. That was one serious mess,” said Mr McEnroy.

'Vicious undertone' to the case

Mr McEnroy said Mr O’Neill told GNBCI that he had legitimately used a long-established practice of Garda discretion when the allegations of unlawfully squaring summonses were put to him.

Mr McEnroy said because GNBCI’s first investigation failed to damage Mr O’Neill, it had pursued him in a “vicious” way.

Mr McEnroy said Mr O’Neill was regarded as an “outstanding garda” who helped end a decade-long gangland warfare in Limerick City that resulted in 23 murders, but he said the GNBCI probes had left him “destroyed” inside.

“This is insane, this case has a vicious undertone,” added Mr McEnroy.

He suggested the prosecution case was a “mess” and that if Mr O’Neill was found guilty, it would be “a profound injustice, an assault on the truth and reprehensible”.

Defence of four gardaí 

Vincent Heneghan, for Garda Geary, said his client received text message from Supt O’Neill asking him to do something and he did it.

“He didn’t think behind it, he did what he was tasked to do. He was a garda and Mr O’Neill was a superintendent. He did nothing wrong,” said Mr Heneghan.

The barrister said Garda Geary must be highly thought of in the force because he had successfully applied for promotion to the rank of detective garda after he was suspended on foot of the GNBCI investigation. 

Mr Heneghan said the role requires the successful candidate to show they have “integrity, decency, bravery”.

Senior counsels John Byrne, for Garda McGlinchey; Jim O’Mahony, for Sgt Hassett; and Andrew Sexton, for Sgt Leahy, told the jury their clients were not guilty and they had been following orders of a superior officer.

All five defence barristers said their clients had done nothing wrong and that the prosecution was “farcical” and “nonsense”.

The trial resumes on Monday.