Recent events show we need an independent police ombudsman

THE story of Frank Shortt and his family represents more than a miscarriage of justice.

It may, just may, represent the turning point in our relationship as a community with the Garda Siochana.

When one reads what happened in this appalling case, it seems at first sight to have been the work of two or perhaps three gardai, in cahoots with each other, and also in some sort of unhealthy alliance of co-dependency leading to a malign and cancerous conspiracy.

At another level, though, I think we have to be really worried about the fact that a lot of it came to light by accident. Had one of the gardai involved not been involved in a marriage break-up, one of the key witnesses in the case might never have come to light.

An innocent man might have carried the stain of a conviction for the rest of his life.

Certainly, it seems to me, he and his family would never have been able to persuade other gardai to reopen the case. The notion that in Ireland the victim of a miscarriage of justice would be able to have recourse to any form of authority outside the courts to help them establish their innocence and that they could rely on the help of the gardai in doing so, is still entirely fanciful. And that may be the most worrying legacy of this case.

That’s why Brendan Howlin of the Labour Party is entirely right when he calls for the establishment of a police ombudsman.

We must have in Ireland a mechanism that will be entirely independent of the gardai, that will report to the Oireachtas directly and not through any Minister for Justice and that will have the resources and the expertise to handle complaints properly and transparently. Any system that relies on those under investigation to carry out the investigation themselves and pass their own judgement is a recipe for failure and corruption.

I’m not saying that the gardai are corrupt, far from it. But in the recent past alone, there have been just too many issues to allow us as a community to be content with the status of the gardai. We need them too much and if we can’t be easy in our minds about their behaviour, we have to do something about it.

The Shortt case, the McBrearty case, the Abbeylara incident, the garda behaviour in a Dublin street not too long ago (when gardai removed their identity badges before wading into a demonstration in a totally over-the-top display of violence) - all these incidents and more give rise for more than concern. They demand action.

I can remember the Fairbrother incident very well, because I was involved in it. That was about 10 years ago, when a young man was beaten within an inch of his life by gardai for absolutely no reason. The case subsequently led to the young man involved, Derek Fairbrother, receiving a settlement from the State of nearly half a million euro, as it would be now.

But that case came to light because Dick Spring, to whom the family had been introduced by one of our Councillors at the time, raised it in the Dáil. He only raised it publicly after he had written to the Minister for Justice, Gerry Collins, and given him time to investigate it privately. When nothing happened he went public.

And the heavens opened. The head of the Garda Representative Body did an interview for the RTE News, dismissing the allegation that this young man had been improperly treated as cheap politics, and implying that Dick Spring was only interested in scoring cheap points. Pieces began appearing in the newspapers in defence of the Garda Siochana and arguing that anyone who was critical of them was running the risk of undermining the security of the State. We got dozens if not hundreds of phone calls, containing very explicit threats about what would happen if any of us were ever caught speeding or stopped with drink on our breaths.

Caller after caller accused Dick Spring of being anti-garda. Numerous callers accused the young man and his family, absolutely unfairly, of being involved in all sorts of nefarious activity. The underlying message was “if he wasn't guilty of one thing, he was surely guilty of another.”

It was one of the most incredible episodes of closing rank that I can ever remember. Not one member of the gardai, at any level, publicly or privately, would even consider the possibility that one or more of their number might have been in the wrong.

To this day, there are gardai who deny that the settlement was ever made (and it was never reported as prominently as the allegations). To this day, the Fairbrother family have an unfair cloud over their reputations in some eyes, as a result of things that happened to them rather than things they did.

No one ever offered to investigate the Fairbrother incident. No one ever said they would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone in the Garda Siochana who let down the rest of the force.

Ten years later, we have to wonder if anything has changed. The spate of incidents we have seen, all of which have damaged the reputation of the force, must surely have caused the deepest rethink about accountability and reputation. And yet there is no real sign of it, either from Government or from the gardai themselves. All we are getting is pious lip service. That’s a sure sign that as soon as the furore dies down, the impetus for change will die with it.

It mustn’t be allowed to. If we can insist on an independent police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, we cannot deny the legitimacy of one here. Indeed, I would go further and investigate the possibility of the same person doing the job in both jurisdictions. But we cannot be content with any situation where the gardai in future are allowed to account for themselves in secret, to hide behind issues of operational security when it suits them, and to close ranks instinctively, even behind their own bad apples. We will regret it if we don’t demand change now. And so, ultimately, will our police force.