Supt contacted garda about road traffic case, court told

A garda accused of perverting the course of justice by intervening in potential road traffic prosecutions told investigating officers from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation that he was contacted by a superintendent about a road traffic case, Limerick Circuit Court has heard.

Former garda superintendent Eamon O’Neill, Sergeant Anne Marie Hassett, Sergeant Michelle Leahy, Garda Colm Geary and Garda Tom McGlinchey have pleaded not guilty to a total of 39 offences of engaging in conduct tending and intended to pervert the course of justice contrary to common law on dates between October 2016 and September 2019.

The jury in the trial has been shown a video of an interview with one of the defendants, Garda Colm Geary, which was recorded at Mayorstone Garda Station where he met members of the GNBCI by arrangement on 8 October 2019.

During the interview, Garda Geary was told by the GNBCI officers that they were involved in an investigation into alleged attempts by members of An Garda Síochána into perverting the course of justice under the Road Traffic Act.

The jury of eight men and four women heard the officers ask Garda Geary if he had ever been contacted by Superintendent Eamon O’Neill about summonses that did not relate to him.

Garda Geary, who was based at Ennis Garda Station, agreed that he had received a phone call from Supt O’Neill, asking him to contact another garda to find out if he could do anything on behalf of a motorist who received a fixed charge penalty notice for allegedly driving without insurance in Ennis, Co Clare.

The court heard that Supt O’Neill and Garda Geary knew each other having met at a wedding a few years earlier.

During the interview, Garda Geary was shown an exchange of text messages between him and Supt O’Neill which had been forensically downloaded from a phone seized during the investigation.

One message contained an image of a letter sent to a motorist by the Garda Traffic Unit in Clare informing the driver that his case had been adjourned. It was accompanied by a text message from the superintendent to Garda Geary which read, “What’s the story with this poor man?”

The court heard that Garda Geary replied, “That’s all sorted. I’ll text him now just to remind him.”

In the video, the jury heard investigating officers ask Garda Geary why Supt O’Neill had contacted him about this case, to which Garda Geary replied, “I presume he was looking for the case not to go to court”.

“Did he say why?” the officers asked Garda Geary in relation to Supt O’Neill. “He didn’t say why, nor did I ask him,” Garda Geary replied.

The GNBCI officers asked the garda what he did then, and he said he “did as requested” and contacted the garda involved in the case.

He was asked during the interview shown to the court, if he thought there was anything untoward about the contact from Supt O’Neill.

“I didn’t think there was anything untoward about the situation because at the end of the day he was a superintendent.”

He was asked if he considered the phone call and subsequent text messages to be from a friend or a superintendent.

Garda Geary said: “Anything from a superintendent I classed as work.”

The jury heard the investigating officers tell Garda Geary that the court summons in the case had been recorded in the Pulse system as having been struck out. He was asked if he had anything to say in relation to that, to which he replied, “No. I wasn’t aware of the outcome.”

Garda Geary was asked again if he had thought at the time that there was anything inappropriate about receiving a call from Supt O’Neill. “I didn’t think there was anything wrong, he was a superintendent, I didn’t think anything more of it.”

The jury is expected to view the rest of the recorded interview during evidence tomorrow.

Trial told of screenshots from seized mobile phones

Earlier the court heard evidence that screenshots of hundreds of WhatsApp messages between the accused superintendent and citizens and other gardaí were downloaded from mobile phones seized under warrant.

Detective Garda Kevin Farrell gave evidence of analysing the mobile phone data from dozens of phones.

He told the court that every time someone interacts with their mobile phone, they leave a digital footprint, and even when messages are deleted, the digital footprint can still be recovered.

During the course of his analysis, he accessed threads of WhatsApp messages between some of the devices seized and a mobile phone associated with the defendant, Eamon O’Neill.

The jury was told that one of the mobile phones which had been provided by a garda had been “wiped” and reset to the default factory setting, which meant the detective was not able to access data from the device.

Examination of another phone belonging to another garda revealed an image sent by a phone associated with superintendent O’Neill was deleted, but an accompanying text message read, “Sorry for the abrupt approach. Any chance of a break on this?”

The jury was also told that Detective Garda Farrell was able to access the data from the phones of two of the accused, Garda Tom McGlinchey and Garda Colm Geary, and that both had provided their passcodes.

Under cross examination by the defence, Detective Garda Farrell agreed that having the passcodes was “significant assistance” to him in his examination of the data on both phones.