A judge said yesterday that gardaí "rising to the bait" of taunts from a group of people coming out late from a Dublin pub had triggered what a senior officer described as "total disorder".
Judge John O'Neill was speaking when he dismissed charges against five people accused of public order offences arising out of the incident outside the Parnell Mooney in Parnell Street on June 30th last year. All pleaded not guilty.
The ruling came after Dublin District Court was shown a CCTV video of a group of people standing on the road outside the pub just before 3 a.m. and gardaí arriving and moving them on to the footpath.
Mr Noel Fagan jnr, St Donagh's Road, Kilbarrack, Dublin, was first arrested and when his brother Des and his father Noel snr approached gardaí, they were also arrested.
Mr Fagan snr, who went towards gardaí "like a bull", was filmed struggling violently when arrested and it took a number of officers to restrain and handcuff him while on the ground. A number of other people who gardaí said were either physically interfering or were extremely abusive were also arrested.
Judge O'Neill said the whole incident may never had happened had one garda not grabbed Noel jnr when the group had been moved on to the footpath.
Derogatory comments were made to gardaí but if officers had stood back and taken them "with a grain of salt", what then happened may not have taken place.
"By taking Noel Fagan (jnr) it seemed to trigger off what happened. Surely the garda must have realised that if they grabbed somebody, something would happen, that other people would not stand idly by."
Insp Tom Duggan said Mr Fagan jnr was "not taken for no reason" and his officers had shown a large degree of restraint in the face of serious verbal abuse and some physical abuse during a scene of "total disorder".
The court heard that when Mr Fagan snr was taken to Store Street Garda station, he was still the loudest and most abusive of the group of people who had been arrested.
He asked the officer in charge, Sgt Michael Jordan: "Are you the chief hard around here?"
Sgt Jordan decided to try to talk to him as the oldest person there and took the handcuffs off him.
As he was leading him through a door into the back yard of the station, he swung around and punched the sergeant in the mouth.
Sgt Jordan said he drew his baton and hit Mr Fagan on the arm before getting him to calm down.
Sgt Jordan denied this was in contravention of the Garda code to take a potentially violent prisoner out to the back yard. He said he had been using his common sense by trying to talk to Mr Fagan away from the other arrested people who could have caused harm in the station.
Judge O'Neill dismissed charges against the Fagans, saying that having viewed the video repeatedly, he was not happy with some of the Garda evidence and did not agree it was a scene of total disorder or even a serious row.
"It is obvious the Fagan family was out for a social evening, had drink and were in high spirits.
"It is easy to be wise after the event, but if the garda did not rise to the bait then maybe things might not have gone the way they did."