Garda ‘harassed woman with sex flyers’

AN office worker wept openly yesterday as she told how she went from one phone box to another, collecting explicit hand bills featuring her name and telephone number and claiming she offered sex for sale.

Garda Anthony Fennelly, aged 39, stationed in Waterford, denies he harassed Amanda Cox, aged 28, on two dates in November 2003. He has also pleaded not guilty to a second charge of theft at her home on September 16, 2003.

A copy of a flyer circulated in phone boxes claiming Ms Cox offered sex for sale was found jammed in a photocopier at the garda station where Gda Fennelly worked. His fingerprints were also found on some flyers. Shredded material found in a bin at the station was later pieced together to make up more flyers.

The jury of seven men and five women at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court heard Ms Cox, of 23 Rathfadden Park, Waterford, was on a night out in Waterford city with work colleagues in December 2001 when Anthony Fennelly made advances towards her.

Gda Fennelly’s wife, Shirley, was a work colleague of Ms Cox and had announced the same night that she was pregnant with the couple’s second child.

“He made advances but I absolutely refused. It happened several times. Shirley had announced to us that night that she was pregnant with her second child. All of his advances were rejected,” Ms Cox said.

A few days later, Gda Fennelly called to Ms Cox’s workplace and apologised but said he was interested in her, she added.

It was also alleged that 18 months later, the garda stole underwear from Ms Cox’s clothesline.

Two months after that, on November 13, 2003, Ms Cox said she was home alone and had gone to bed early. Her mobile phone began to ring but she could not understand who was on the line.

When it rang the fifth time, she asked the man on the line how he had got her number. He said he had picked it up from a flyer in a phone box on The Quay.

“They were sexual calls. I was completely shocked and didn’t know what to think. I assumed he had written the number down wrong and it was a mistake. It was in the middle of the night and my phone just kept ringing.”

She said she got up and drove her car down to The Quay where she found flyers in several phone boxes, containing her number and her surname incorrectly spelt as ‘Cocks’.

“I took them out of the phone boxes and drove around collecting them. The phone was ringing intermittently but I didn’t meet anyone in the phone boxes, thank God.”

The next morning she went to the gardaí. She found more leaflets in a phone box directly outside the station.

Garda John Shorthall, of Waterford Garda Station, told the court he was on duty on the night of November 13 and had gone to the photocopying room to copy a sheet of paper. He noticed paper had become jammed in the machine.

When he opened the copier, he retrieved a crumpled piece of paper containing advertisements for sexual favours. The A4 sheet contained six adverts, each with a name and phone number.

“It was lewd and offensive. I kept the piece of paper with my papers and at around 1am I showed it to some colleagues.”

A second garda, Michael Cauley, said he was also on duty on the night.

He’d been shown the photocopy by Gda Shorthall. “Around 5.45am a member of staff brought it to my attention that Amanda Cox had complained about phonecalls asking for sexual favours.

“Garda Shorthall showed me a slip of paper and I recognised it as being part of the group of slips I had seen earlier,” he told the court.

He said he put the piece of paper retrieved from the photocopier in his locker, along with coloured, shredded paper he found in another bin. He added he had gone to The Quay and had retrieved CCTV footage from the area which did not show anything significant.

The trial continues.