Garda 'novice' at centre of siege

The garda in charge of negotiating with Mr John Carthy, the gunman at the centre of the Abbeylara siege, was a "novice negotiator", the chairman of the Barr tribunal has said.

Evidence had emerged during the earlier training module of the tribunal that the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) negotiator, Det Insp Michael Jackson, had only completed his negotiator's course within weeks of the siege, Mr Justice Barr said.

"Quite clearly Insp Jackson was a novice negotiator ... This was his first time acting as a negotiator."

The chairman was responding to an objection by counsel from the Garda Commissioner, Mr Diarmuid McGuinness, to a line of questioning taken by counsel for the Carthy family, Mr Michael O'Higgins, in relation to Insp Jackson.

Mr O'Higgins put it to the Garda scene commander at Abbeylara, Supt Joseph Shelly, that he had failed to check the credentials of Insp Jackson, whom he said had been "plucked from relative obscurity" to attend the negotiator's course.

Supt Shelly never asked Insp Jackson about his skills or qualifications, Mr O'Higgins said, yet he was prepared to give him complete control of the siege negotiations. Supt Shelly said he did not agree he had done so but said it would not have been appropriate to "pull him up" and question Insp Jackson on a task which "I know he was well capable of undertaking".

Mr O'Higgins said Supt Shelly's attitude was "proof positive you haven't a clue" in relation to how to command a siege. His failure to lead had "resulted in wholesale practical failures" in the operation of the negotiations.

If Supt Shelly had asked Insp Jackson about his training, he might have discovered that it was considered best practice to set up a "negotiation cell" at a remove from the scene, to establish a negotiations team of four or five people and to use story boards to plan the negotiations, he said