LAST UPDATE | 5 Jul
A GARDA SERGEANT with almost 30 years’ service has been found guilty of assaulting a prisoner at Waterford Garda Station and then pressuring a junior colleague to make a “false” entry on the station’s custody register.
Sgt William Doyle was charged with a section 2 assault charge against the man in custody, under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, and another charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by requesting no record be taken.
Judge John O’Leary said Doyle had led his junior colleague, who was then on probation, “into a trap of falsifying the record”, adding that the “public need to have confidence” in record keeping for prisoners.
He accepted mitigation from defence barrister David Staunton that Doyle was a longserving member of good standing and will likely “immediately” lose his job as a result of the conviction.
The judge sentenced him to 80 hours community service in lieu of a four-month prison sentence.
The case arose on foot of an investigation by the Garda Ombudsman (GSOC) and a prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The court had heard that Doyle was seen with his hands on the suspect’s shoulders, and that one guard had heard a “skin on skin” slap as her back was turned.
The sergeant, who has spent 28 years in An Garda Síochána, had contested claims that he pressured a junior colleague to make an incorrect entry on the station’s custody register regarding the treatment of the suspect on 9 March 2022.
At a sitting last month in Waterford District Court, Doyle also denied directing two junior gardaí to leave him alone with the criminal suspect. The younger man alleged he was immediately subjected to an attack in a room at a Waterford Garda Station.
But Doyle insisted in court that he had been trying to “calm the situation” when dealing with the suspect, who had been arrested that morning over an assault allegedly involving a pickaxe on the city’s quay.
In a previous hearing earlier this year, Garda Rachel Pratt alleged that Sgt William Doyle had told her not to “mention” an incident in the fingerprinting room in which he allegedly assaulted the suspect at the station in Ballybricken in Waterford city.
Instead, Pratt said she was told to record that the suspect had become “aggressive” and that Doyle had tried to restrain him.
Pratt, who was on probation at the time and under supervision by Doyle, had told the court that it “didn’t feel right”.
The sergeant claimed that he had told Pratt that it was “up to you what you put down” when discussing what to record in the custody register.
Today in court Judge John O’Leary said he accepted that the incident over the register “happened on the spur of the moment” and that Doyle did not seek out Pratt to make the change. Instead, the judge said he was asked for advice by Pratt on what to do about the incident involving the prisoner.
However, he said he “rejects” Doyle’s stance and said the sergeant had “led led [Pratt] into a trap of falsifying record, which she did”, only to change the entry later.
He said this amounted to “concealing or failing to report” the incident concerning the prisoner in the fingerprinting room at the station.
O’Leary praised Pratt for reversing the incorrect record entry later and giving “very honest evidence” during the case.
He added that Doyle “had power over Garda Pratt who behaved as any supervisee would” in the situation.
On what he called the “more serious” charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice, O’Leary said that in “asking Garda Pratt to falsify the custody record it confirms [Doyle's] guilt” of the section two assault.
“There is no other plausible or reasonably plausible conclusion,” he added.
On the assault charge, the judge said he was “fully satisfied that the accused stood above [the prisoner] when he was sitting down and vulnerable and assaulted him in a way that went beyond any reasonable force”.
He further accepted that the prisoner had subjected Doyle to “torrents of abuse” prior to the assault.
An earlier hearing heard evidence from two other gardaí who had been in the room where Doyle and the suspect were.
The court was told that Doyle and the suspect had traded insults. Following this, it was alleged that Doyle had directed the two gardaí to leave the room when he told them: “Give me two secs there lads”.
Detective Garda Sean Lane, who was at garda rank at the time, said that he interpreted it to mean he was to leave the room. He explained what he was thinking at the time: “He’s a sergeant, I’m a guard.”
A victim impact statement for the young prisoner, read into the record by prosecuting barrister David Perry, said he “should have been left safe” in the station and was instead “beaten and attacked”. He further thanked one of the gardaí for coming to his assistance following incident.
However, the judge said he would “pay no attention whatsoever” to photographs submitted to demonstrate injuries allegedly incurred during the assault.
O’Leary said “some of them or all” of the injuries may have occurred prior to his arrest earlier that morning or even during the arrest by a separate garda.
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