A GARDA has said a colleague accused of assaulting a young man after forcing entry to his flat told her not to say anything if she was asked about the alleged incident.
Garda Caroline Breslin, then a student garda, said she was in a patrol car with Garda Alan Conlon a few days after the alleged assault when he told her not to say anything if anyone asked her about the incident.
Gardaí Conlon, Eoin Murtagh, Claire Delaney and Sean O’Leary have pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to forcing entry to a premises in Basin Street Upper, Dublin, entering as a trespasser and assaulting Owen Gaffney (21), causing him harm on February 17th, 2008. Garda Murtagh, Garda Conlon and Garda Delaney have also pleaded not guilty to the false imprisonment of Fidelma Gaffney on the same occasion.
In evidence yesterday, Garda Breslin told Patrick McGrath, prosecuting, that she had been in a patrol car driven by Garda Conlon on the day in question when he said something about a male who had threatened to bite his nose off.
She said Garda Conlon said that Garda Murtagh had received scrapes on his face from another incident with this same person.
She said they drove around the Basin Street area a few times. She had assumed the purpose was to see if they could find this person.
She said Garda Conlon had been on the car radio to meet up with the Kilmainham patrol vehicle, occupied by the other three accused and then student Garda Catherine Patterson.
Garda Breslin said she recalled Garda Conlon getting out of their car to speak with the Kilmainham car occupants before the two vehicles and another patrol car drove to the Basin Street flats.
She said everyone climbed some stairs and somebody knocked at a flat door. A female answered but she could not hear what was said.
She said the other gardaí, with the exception of herself and a male garda, went upstairs in the flat, and the female followed. She said she heard screaming from, presumably, the same woman.
She said a man, who seemed a “bit out of it, or drunk” came to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up something like: “Stop that, what you’re at there.” She told Mr McGrath that she and the other male garda waiting outside decided to go back to mind the vehicles when they noticed children nearby shouting abuse and threatening to damage the cars.
She said all the other gardaí returned downstairs a few minutes later and the cars left the area.
Garda Breslin accepted when David Keane SC, defending Garda Conlon, highlighted that in her original statement to the Garda Ombudsman Commission she said she had been distracted by “children and youths” while outside the flat. She agreed these could have been youths playing five-a-side football in the nearby pitch.
She further accepted she had said in her statement that Garda Conlon told her if anyone asked her what happened “you didn’t see anything.” She agreed that she had not seen anything from her position outside the door.
The trial before Judge Desmond Hogan continues.