Boy ordered to strip by gardai awarded damages

A boy who was 14 years old at the time he was ordered to strip and stand naked in front of gardaí in a police station has been awarded €8,500 damages against the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

Mr John Nolan, counsel for Stephen Brennan, now aged 17, of Whelan House, Ringsend, Dublin, said a garda had refused to allow the boy to keep his underpants on, while another nicknamed him "tubby" after the boy had taken them off.

"Stephen was embarrassed and when he tried to cover himself he was told by one garda not to do so," Mr Nolan told the Circuit Court President, Mr Justice Esmond Smyth, yesterday.

Mr Nolan said Stephen, whose uncle is a garda, had been with a group of friends near his Ringsend home on January 30th, 2001, when a garda car drove up.

The remainder of his friends had run off but since he had done nothing wrong he had stayed where he was. A garda had grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him into the squad car. Later he had been "shoved into a room" at Irishtown Garda Station and ordered to undress.

Last night the Brennan family told The Irish Times that when they first decided to pursue the matter with the gardaí, their efforts were frustrated. Mr Bill Brennan, Stephen's father, said an officer had asked him repeatedly to "sign a form" to allow the matter to be investigated within the force.

Stephen, now an apprentice plumber, said he was guilty of no wrongdoing and believed he had been made an example of by gardaí, who did not want children hanging around the old Regal House cinema in Ringsend.

"They said [I had to undress] so I wouldn't harm myself. They said a month before they had a 15-year-old who had tried to commit suicide by trying to hang himself."

"But after they strip-searched me and I got dressed, they left me for about 45 to 50 minutes where nobody came in at all. So if I was going to do something, why didn't they keep checking on me?"

Mr Brennan, a taxi driver and father of five, said Stephen had become withdrawn afterwards and needed months of counselling. He had also experienced difficulties in school, requiring his parents to inform teachers what had happened, which was the cause of further embarrassment.

"I asked the guards if they had asked Stephen to move off and he didn't move off. They said no, that they had just brought him in. So I said, 'you are more or less using him as an example'. They said "if you want to put it that way you can put it that way'".

The award brings to €429,481 the total paid out in 2003 in settlements and awards to people who made complaints against gardai, mainly of unlawful detention and assault.