Inside the garda trial: lawyers, fixed charge notices and a courtroom packed with gardaí

Lawyers, gardaí and political and sporting links converge in an unusually crowded Limerick trial examining 39 alleged attempts to quash fixed charge notices

Retired superintendent Eamon O’Neill.

All criminal trials are peopled by lawyers and gardaí. 

An ongoing trial at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court is practically the exclusive domain of lawyers and gardaí. 

Four members of An Garda Síochána and a retired superintendent are on trial for attempting to pervert the course of justice. 

The charges are related to “squaring” fixed charged notices for various people, including county hurlers and at least one politician.

Each defendant has a senior counsel, one or two junior counsels, and a solicitor. 

This is as it should be. 

Every defendant in a trial is entitled to their own representation. 

In total, there are six seniors and at least a dozen junior counsels in attendance at the trial.

The bench reserved for senior counsel was so full, one of their number had to sit with the juniors behind.

At this junior perch, the bench is so stuffed that at least six counsel had to be accommodated behind makeshift tables and chairs in what would ordinarily serve as part of the public gallery.

The crowded atmosphere applies also to the accommodation of the defendants. 

On the appointed bench — the dock as a feature was done away with years ago — there is only room for three defendants. 

Retired superintendent Eamon O’Neill sits there beside Garda Tom McGlinchey and Garda Colin Geary. 

Two chairs have been pulled up next to that bench where sit the other two defendants, Sergeant Anne Marie Hassett and Sergeant Michelle Leahy.

Apart from the lawyers and the gardaí on trial, practically all of the witnesses have also been gardaí. 

Sergeant Michelle Leahy. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

They could broadly be broken down into officers from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which conducted the investigation that led to this trial, and both senior and junior officers from the mid-west region, who were questioned about various aspects of the cases before the court.

The trial has been ongoing for over four weeks in Court Three of Limerick Courthouse but interest in the case is still intense as the public gallery is nearly full.

The case is overseen by a fresh-faced judge, Roderick Maguire, who is courteous and businesslike with all involved. 

And then there are those who will decide the outcome of the trial, the jury of eight men and four women who are corralled in a wood-panelled jury box.

It’s just as well the modern courtroom has high ceilings and plenty of blond wood to provide sufficient air and light for a crowded trial, at which a lot is at stake.

The five defendants are charged with a total of 39 counts of “engaging in conduct tending and intended to pervert the course of justice”. 

Each count refers to a case in which there were requests, processes, or communications to terminate a fixed charge notice issued in relation to road safety. 

The jury has been told that all of the counts are connected to retired superintendent O’Neill.

Politics and sport are putting in an appearance in this trial. 

On Wednesday, the court heard that Abbeyfeale-based councillor Liam Galvin contacted then Supt O’Neill early in 2018 to “square” a speeding ticket. 

The process involved a series of WhatsApp messages between the two men, some of which included attachments.

One of the attachments was a screenshot from a council meeting, sent by the coucillor to the superintendent. 

It stated: “I will move a motion at the next meeting that the government review the location of the GoSafe vans in Co Limerick.” 

Another series of messages concerned a fixed charge notice served on Jason Gillane, a brother of the well-known Limerick hurler, Aaron Gillane. 

Both brothers exchanged messages with then Supt O’Neill over the prospect of getting the fixed charge notice squared, or quashed.

The wheels of justice move slowly in this trial, through nobody’s fault because there is a lot of detail to be parsed over. 

On Wednesday, ahead of evidence from a crime scene analyst, each member of the jury was furnished with a large, hard-covered, thick binder, full of detail of communications between various parties that has been analysed.

It's fair to say there has never been a trial like this before and its outcome will be tracked with huge interest by all sorts of groups across law enforcement, the legal business, sport, and politics.