Teacher tells court she 'screamed in agony' after garda twisted her arm

The woman claims she suffered a spiral fracture of her left humerus during a 'half-hour-long interrogation' by five gardaí

The then 23-year-old teacher of physical education and biology told a High Court jury she had been arrested after getting into a 'heated' argument with her brother near Eyre Square in Galway. Stock picture

A secondary school teacher claims she “screamed out in agony” after a male garda allegedly twisted her arm until it broke following her arrest after an altercation on a night out.

Denise Callinan, at the time a 23-year-old teacher of physical education and biology, said she had been subjected to a half-hour-long interrogation by five gardaí at Mill Street Garda Station in Galway City in the early hours of October 19, 2019.

Ms Callinan had sued the Garda Commissioner demanding damages for the alleged assault.

She told a High Court jury that she had been arrested by two male gardaí after getting into a “heated” argument with her brother near Eyre Square at about 3am on that date.

She said that having been taken to the garda station on Mill St she was asked “incessant questions” in the station’s reception area regarding her brother’s whereabouts and felt that the questioning gardaí “where getting furious at me as they felt I had information that I didn’t have”.

"Then I was approached by a male garda from behind. 

He grabbed my left wrist and twisted it higher and higher while shouting ‘tell us, tell us, tell us’.

“I could tell something had happened as I screamed out in agony and was in severe pain. 

"I knew it was broken, I played sport for years. I knew that this man has broken my arm, I was hysterical,” she said.

'Spiral fracture of the humerus'

The court, before Justice Tony O’Connor, heard that a subsequent X-ray of the plaintiff showed she had suffered a spiral fracture of her left humerus, following which her arm was placed in cast for eight weeks, during which time she could not work or engage in sport, having played volleyball and football prior to the alleged incident.

Ms Callinan said that she had suffered from severe mental health issues in the wake of the alleged assault, culminating in “a pretty severe incident of self-harm” following a prolonged period of sleeplessness in September 2020.

Guilty plea to resisting arrest

She acknowledged that she had pleaded guilty to resisting arrest on the night of October 19, saying she did so to “protect my career”.

She said that what had happened that night was “not my finest hour” and that she regretted resisting arrest, but had done so as she felt like she “was being attacked”.

She described as “a lie” the suggestion by arresting Garda Austin Cunningham that she had given her brother a kiss on the street.

When it was put to her that she had said to her brother at the time “you hurt my arm” she replied “that is not true at all”.

She was told that the gardaí present had insisted that she was not thrown on the ground when arrested, replying “I have very good co-ordination and would not just fall to the ground”.

Informed that a garda witness would be testifying that, while in a cell at Mill St, she shouted at her brother in an adjacent cell ‘you broke my arm’, Ms Callinan replied “he was saying ‘you broke my sister’s arm, how could you’”.

Put to her that all of the gardaí present on the night would say she was not thrown into the cell after the alleged arm-breaking incident, Ms Callinan said ”of course they’re all going to agree, they’re one big family”.