Nightclub owner Mr Frank Shortt was "destroyed" after being wrongfully convicted and jailed for three years on charges of allowing the sale of drugs at his pub, the High Court heard today.
Mr Shortt, who owns the Point Inn in Inishowen, Co Donegal, is believed to be seeking several million Euro compensation for his ordeal.
Opening the claim for compensation by Mr Shortt against the Garda Commissioner and the State, Mr Eoin McGonigal SC said that, insofar as there was "a plan by gardai" to close or damage Mr Shortt's nightclub, that plan had succeeded by March 1995 when Mr Shortt was jailed.
Mr Shortt (69), a married father of five children, with an address at Redcastle, Co Donegal, was effectively a destroyed person, internally to himself and externally to the community, Mr McGonigal said.
Mr Shortt served 27 months in prison, including some months in "inhuman" conditions in a cell measuring ten feet by seven feet in Mountjoy Prison's D Wing. The toilet in the cell was an aluminium pot.
Because of what Mr Shortt had endured, before his conviction, during his imprisonment and afterwards, he was seeking compensation for breach of his constitutional rights, for the "deliberate and conscious abuse" of statutory powers and for loss and damage to his reputation, counsel outlined.
He was also seeking damages for conspiracy, negligence, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment and was further seeking aggravated and exemplary damages.
Mr Shortt's claim for compensation arises from a Court of Criminal Appeal decision certifying that he was a victim of a miscarriage of justice. A hearing to assess the amount of damages to be paid to Mr Shortt began today before the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Finnegan, and is expected to last several days.