Courts

Children left terrified after armed gardaí raided wrong house awarded €52,500

Circuit Civil Court heard officers with guns burst into children’s bedroom at their home in Ballyfermot in Dublin

Armed gardaí raided the wrong house and searched it over a period of two hours while the parents and their three children were kept downstairs. Photograph: Collins Courts
Armed gardaí raided the wrong house and searched it over a period of two hours while the parents and their three children were kept downstairs. Photograph: Collins Courts
Ray Managh
Fri Oct 25 2024 - 12:36

Three children who were left terrified after armed gardaí broke into the wrong house in Ballyfermot in Dublin and entered their bedroom have been awarded a total of €52,500 by a judge.

Barrister Conor Kearney told Judge Fiona O’Sullivan in the Circuit Civil Court that several members of the Garda’s Armed Support Unit entered their bedroom and pointed their guns at a wardrobe before allowing the children downstairs where they were kept with their parents for two hours while their home was searched.

Mr Kearney, who appeared with Chris Horrigan of Blake Horrigan Solicitors, told Judge O’Sullivan that Ruby Maeve O’Reilly Gibbons, now aged 11, and her sisters Molly (10) and Kayleigh (16) had been extremely afraid during the raid in September 2022.

He said that shortly after the incident, all of the children had to receive counselling for shock and trauma and their family and social lives had been disrupted.

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Counsel said the family, including the children’s parents, had sued the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice and settlement offers of €17,500 had been made in respect of each child which he was recommending to the court on the basis that liability could become an issue due to an existing legal authority.

The court heard that the parents, of Clifden Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin 10, had each already settled their separate €60,000 damages claims for personal injury for sums that were not disclosed to the judge.

The court was told armed gardaí had raided the wrong house and searched it over a period of two hours while the parents and their three children were kept downstairs. The children brought their claims through their mother Erica O’Reilly.

Mr Kearney said the facts were the same in all three cases and the medical reports submitted to the court were similar regarding the distress the children suffered and their treatment. He said a defence had not been entered in any of the three cases but a full defence had been entered in the cases involving their parents.

Judge O’Sullivan, approving of the settlements totalling €52,500 for the three children, said they had suffered a distressing experience and she felt the money on offer was fair and appropriate.