A GARDA INSPECTOR has been told that the State has ended the prosecution against him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A former co-defendant, Garda Detective Inspector Brian Roberts (51), walked free from court on Friday after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) dropped his charge.<\/p>\n
Detective Inspector Roberts was initially charged in April with unlawfully disclosing confidential information on 10 October, 2018.<\/p>\n
He had replied, \u201cI have done absolutely nothing wrong; the truth will come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The case, still at the pre-trial stage, resumed at Dublin District Court on Friday when prosecution solicitor Mark Donnelly told Judge Karen Dowling that the single charge against Detective Inspector Roberts was being withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Judge Dowling told that officer, \u201cThat is the end of the matter\u201d, and he left court.<\/p>\n
The Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation has now brought 189 charges against four remaining defendants following a corruption probe.<\/p>\n
In separate matters before the same court this morning details were given about new charges levelled against a retired Superintendent and a serving garda detective.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the same sitting Dublin-based John Murphy (65), a retired Superintendent and Garda Detective Aidan Stratford (50) each received an additional charge under section 71 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.<\/p>\n
The charge alleges they conspired to induce people by deception to part with money.<\/p>\n
These offences are alleged to have happened from the start of 2018 until the end of the following year.<\/p>\n
They both \u201cmade no reply\u201d, the judge noted.<\/p>\n
The pair were held at court because the new charge required the High Court to grant bail, as it had done before on existing charges.<\/p>\n
Murphy was not lodged in the cells and was told to \u201ctake the best seat in the house\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Dowling asked if he would behave; he replied, \u201cI certainly will, Judge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the High Court, Ms Justice Caroline Biggs noted there was no objection to bail on terms already set for their related charges.<\/p>\n
They will appear again on 6 November at the District Court.<\/p>\n
They and two other defendants are expected to be served with books of evidence and returned for trial at the Circuit Court.<\/p>\n
The DPP has directed that the four men are to face trial on indictment.<\/p>\n
In his original set of charges, it is alleged the ex-superintendent participated in or contributed to activities intended to facilitate serious offences by a criminal organisation, between 12 April, 2016 and 29 September, 2021, contrary to Section 72 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.<\/p>\n
Murphy also has seven bribery charges under the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018.<\/p>\n
The ex-superintendent also faced four common law charges for communicating with a serving member of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na in a manner intended to pervert the course of public justice from April 2016 to January 2018. His co-defendants had been granted bail earlier and were also listed on Friday at the District Court.<\/p>\n
Garda Eoghan Clerkin (51) faces charges alleging that on 19 February, 2018, he attempted to obtain a gift inducement corruptly, under the Prevention of Corruption Act.<\/p>\n
According to another firearms charge, he unlawfully possessed 33 rifle rounds and 73 rounds of 9mm ammunition at an address in west Dublin.<\/p>\n
Garda Clerkin is accused of facilitating a serious offence by a criminal organisation from 12 January, 2018, to 13 June, 2019.<\/p>\n
He was unable to appear on Friday, and a sick note was furnished to the court on his behalf.<\/p>\n
Garda Manus Keane (46) remains charged that on 13 November, 2014, he, a serving member, disclosed confidential information which was likely to have a harmful effect.<\/p>\n
In addition to the new charge, Aidan Stratford (50) is also accused of contributing to activities intended to facilitate serious offences by a criminal organisation from 2016 to 2021.<\/p>\n
He faces another 170 charges, including disclosing confidential information or corruptly accepting a gift, inducement or reward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A GARDA INSPECTOR has been told that the State has ended the prosecution against him.\u00a0\u00a0 A former co-defendant,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[263968,74165,8411,42,263969,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-621677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-charges-withdrawn","tag-dpp","tag-dublin-district-court","tag-headlines","tag-inspector-brian-roberts","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}