Army apprentices warned 'someone is going to have to die' due to alleged abuse by officer

Defence Forces Tribunal witness Damien Traynor arriving at the tribunal today. Picture: Neil Michael.

Army apprentices who claim to have been physically and mentally by an officer warned “someone is going to have to die” for the abuse to stop just months before one of them ended their life, the Defence Forces Tribunal has heard.

Oliver Mullaney was one of the apprentices allegedly abused by the officer - who cannot be named in tribunal hearings - while in the 34th Platoon at the Apprentice School at Devoy Barracks in Co Kildare, when he died on the evening of June 22, 1991.

At the time, Mr Mullaney had been on armed sentry duty at Devoy Barracks and was found dead after three shots had been fired from his semi-automatic service rifle.

The tribunal has heard alleged incidents of repeated brutality and threatening and abusive behaviour by the officer - known only as 2LT. The abuse was of Mr Mullaney was recalled by one of Mr Mullaney’s former fellow apprentices who also suffered abuse.

Damien Traynor told the tribunal he was beaten and attacked so many times that he ended up having a mental breakdown.

He broke down in tears as he recalled being repeatedly punched and kicked by 2LTB - who, the tribunal has heard, forced another soldier to eat an ashtray filled with cigarette butts.

Mr Traynor, who joined the Apprentice School in 1989, also told how his whole body was regularly covered in bruises on a regular basis and eventually, he admitted: “I wasn’t able to take it anymore.” 

Not long after he started in the army, the officer 2LTB’s bad treatment of him started with him delaying him from attending his grandfather’s funeral in May 1990.

He then recalled being kicked in the ribs and being berated by the officer while he was at a firing range, despite an NCO saying that he was doing nothing wrong.

He told how he was later told his name was on a list of names the NCOs had been told “to ride” - to “really give a hard time”.

During a parade later, he recalled being punched three times by the officer for not “sucking in” his stomach.

One of the worst episodes was in 1991, when he said he was marched into 2LTB’s office and “ordered” to sign his own discharge papers.

Every time he refused, he was forced to do press ups and run on the spot while being kicked, beaten and shouted at by 2LTB.

“He was as angry as I had ever seen him,” he recalled. “He kept saying ‘You think you’re a tough guy’ then ‘go on, fight me, I know you want to fight me’.

“It was erratic, it was pretty crazy, it was a man who had lost his senses. Red face, wild eyes, pure rage.

“It was scary, frightening, disturbing.” 

Over the weeks and months that followed, he says he was repeatedly told he did not suit the army, and that he would have to leave.

Eventually, he said the constant attacks and violence got the better of him.

“The intensity was too much,” he said.

“I wasn't able to take it any more.Pressure does things to people.” 

He spoke about becoming suicidal, saying: “It’s not an easy thing to to say, that you would be that vulnerable and pressurised to that point.

“In those few last months, I often heard fellas say ‘someone’s going to have to die here before this changes’."

At one point before he, in his own words - “exploded” - he said he found himself sitting on his bed with a knife.

“I was cutting tracks in my arm,” he told the tribunal. “Ultimately I thought of my (family) and I couldn't do it.

“That was my full stop, so I just exploded.” 

He went into the school’s pool room and smashed up the table, and ended up being taken into custody by an officer and locked in the camp’s guard room.

His parents later had to buy him out of the Defence Forces.

In reply to any of Mr Traynor’s allegations against 2LTB, the former officer’s legal representative said he wanted it put on record that the officer refuted all the allegations against him.