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A COURT IN WATERFORD was told yesterday that a garda sergeant accused of assault told investigators that he put his foot on the alleged victim’s neck.
In the print edition of today’s Irish Independent, Conor Kane reports that Sgt Alan Kissane also told them he put his foot on the alleged victim, Anthony Holness’s hand during the arrest on 29 January 2010.
Sgt Kissane, Sgt Martha McEnery and Garda Daniel Hickey all deny assaulting Holness and causing him harm.
Yesterday Waterford Circuit Court heard that the Sgt McEnery had given Holness “a few slaps on the back of the head“.
Sgt Kissane told the Garda Siochána Ombudsman Commission that he didn’t assault or mistreat Holness.
Sgt McEnery and Sgt Kissane had received a call on 29 January 2010 to assist Gda Hickey in arresting Holness.
McEnery said that she heard Holness shout things like “I’ll f***ing kill you” when they arrived on the scene.
Spot on Stephen , it must run through a garda’s mind every time they arrest a violent person that they could end up in court. Not nice
Is this the same case where the defendants are turning up to court in full motorcycle gear including helmets?
Seriously? What’s the point of that?
Just wanted to know if it was the same case, you wouldn’t see any other defendant fully anonimous, you can’t enter banks and business like this so why a court house?
No u wouldn’t, wasn’t there some case a number of years ago where a former model entered the court with a kind of middle Eastern female full body suit and two other women did the same with the intention of confusing press. Judge didn’t like it and told her to focus on the case and not publicity. If they are doing that in this case it’s very disrespectful to the courts.
I tell you what, if I gave a guard “a few slaps on the back ofvthe head”, I. guarantee it would be considered assault.
Double standards unfortunately doesn’t help the Guard’s image.
Well that’s pretty obvious Lenny, it’s also obvious most people don’t like being arrested and some will resist and need to be forcefully restrained, it’s not pretty and not a job I’d like to do.
A few slaps in this case does not cover the extent of abuse of power in this case. A few slaps should never be acceptable unless defending ones self. The Guards get sb awful lot of leeway in this country. I know a number of them personally and sometimes have to bite my tongue when they have a laugh at how rough they get. I stand by my double standards comment in reference to me giving a guard a few slaps. Admittedly, they also have a hell of a lot of crap to put up with.
They’ll get away with it. The guards are untouchable. We have a scarily 1920s Chicago police force.
How on earth do people think criminals get arrested? They all just say “oh well you got me” and walk calmly to the squad car? Seriously, people need a reality check on what the Gardaí deal with. Weather this particular incident was excessive is for the courts to decide but two Gardaí do not put their foot on an assailants body to arrest him just for the craic. Had they not done it this man may have injured them or escaped and I bet there’d be a compliant over that.
If you knew more details about the case you may think differently. Gardai do an admirable job and some force is needed when people are assisting arrest put interfering with CCTV cameras so their actions can’t be recorded. CCTV should be there to protect everyone including gardai if they did nothing wrong it would have been captured case closed no need to bring it this far but they moved the camera, why?
Agree with you aideen, if the arrested person was resisting arrest the camera footage would be used as evidence, it doesn’t look good for the gardai.
So you think a boot on the neck is acceptable?
Just another wast of taxpayers money. When every man on the street knows the Garda are above the law.
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