Garda cleared of drink-driving after botched arrest

JupiterKid

Hmmm...I think two separate court cases are bring mixed up here. One is of a Garda who plays for his county GAA team and was alleged to have been drink driving in Sligo but didn't crash his car.

The second case is in Dublin where a detective Garda crashed his car into another on the M50 and is alleged to have been intoxicated behind the wheel after watching a rugby match in the pub with colleagues.

Which begs the question - just how widespread is drink driving amongst the Gardai? The very people supposed to be enforcing the rules of the road? :-/

Stiffler2

Best write a letter to Gay Byrne. He'll be fisting that guard by the time he's finished reading me letter.

reallistically though gardai are above the law and drink driving simply doesn't apply to them....


K.UNT-TREE is F**KED

Turner

Stiffler2 wrote: »

reallistically though gardai are above the law and drink driving simply doesn't apply to them....

Hold on a second,

He was found to be drink driving, arrested by his colleagues and brought to a station where he provided a sample.

He got off on a technicality, the same kind of technicality that tens of thousands of people caught drink driving are entitled to challenge their cases on.

He obviously made a mistake on the night but..

The Gardai actually go out and do their job by arresting a member of their own force treating him no differently to any member of the public, which is what we want from a police force.

And they still get slated here.

lastlaugh

Turner wrote: »

Hold on a second,

He was found to be drink driving, arrested by his colleagues and brought to a station where he provided a sample.

He got off on a technicality, the same kind of technicality that tens of thousands of people caught drink driving are entitled to challenge their cases on.

He obviously made a mistake on the night but..

The Gardai actually go out and do their job by arresting a member of their own force treating him no differently to any member of the public, which is what we want from a police force.

And they still get slated here.

Are you talking about the same guy who crashed on the M50?

Turner

lastlaugh wrote: »

Are you talking about the same guy who crashed on the M50?

No the GAA player.

lastlaugh

Turner wrote: »

No the GAA player.

Oh, sorry my mistake.

The ally cat

micropig wrote: »

Once again the level of debate has been reduced to attacking the poster and not the post

Go tell Teacher!

Sonnenblumen

I'm surprised by soem of the comments and some posters seem to have loss sight of the fact that the Court has not concluded this case.

Beware contempt of Court! :eek:

Logical Fallacy

Turner wrote: »

He obviously made a mistake on the night but..

Why do people keep using that phrase.

"He made a mistake..."

Did he think he was walking or something? I think you mean "He knowingly broke the law".

starviewadams

Nobody has ever made a mistake when drunk before,no?

The young Garda in Sligo was arrested,brought back to the station,put on the intoxilyzer and provided a positive breath sample,and was duly brought to court,but like hundreds of others in similar situations,was lucky to escape a conviction on a technicality.But once again people use this to ignorantly scream corruption,and to take snide pot shots at AGS.

The dectective who crashed on the M50's case is still ongoing.

Patrick2010

Sonnenblumen wrote: »

I'm surprised by soem of the comments and some posters seem to have loss sight of the fact that the Court has not concluded this case.

Beware contempt of Court! :eek:

The case is over, he got off the charge of drink driving on a technicality (even though he admitted he had been driving the car after being drinking all day) and was fined 100 euro for no tax, case closed.

BTW The judge dismissed the case because he said there was a delay in cautioning the guard, apparently he wasn't charged until 25 minutes after the arresting guards arrived at the scene. Yet according to the report there were a number of people at the scene , none of who would say anything except for a friend of the accused claiming that he was the driver.
Given the circumstances, a delay of 25 minutes is hardly excessive given the confusion at the scene and the need to figure out what had happened.

bonzos

He is a well known GAA player,a garda and as far I know his father is also a garda......this man was never going to be convicted of anythng. This is Ireland get real folks

talla10

Proxy wrote: »

talla10 wrote:

He wasen't cleared of drink driving he was never arrested for it. Under S4 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 a sample of blood,urine or breath must be taken from a suspect within 3 hours of driving. By the time the guards spoke to him it was later than 3 hours.

The arrest also wasen't botched they followed the legislation. The laws are there for a reason so maybe read the full story before starting a thread about it?

*Not AGS

So not only did the Garda (who is meant to uphold the law), break the law, but the Garda who was meant to enforce the law at the time of the crime failed to do so correctly. The very same as the IT story, also regards drink driving.

Thanks for clearing that one up for me. :rolleyes:

It was a road traffic accident the ambulance arrived before gardai brought them to hospital before guards arrived on scene and then he left hospital straight away so what guard failed to enforce law? They weren't at the scene

Guy:Incognito

I sincerly hope the judge dint fine him for not having "road tax" . Be an easy one to have overturned seeing as theres no such thing as road tax here.

Potential-Monke

Patrick2010 wrote: »

BTW The judge dismissed the case because he said there was a delay in cautioning the guard, apparently he wasn't charged until 25 minutes after the arresting guards arrived at the scene. Yet according to the report there were a number of people at the scene , none of who would say anything except for a friend of the accused claiming that he was the driver.
Given the circumstances, a delay of 25 minutes is hardly excessive given the confusion at the scene and the need to figure out what had happened.

But it's Road Traffic Legislation for Drink Driving, the first thing that needs to be done asap is a caution. And even with the 25 minute delay the conviction may have been upheld if there was a reasonable explanation for the delay, but there wasn't.

Bottom line is that thousands of people get off drink driving for even smaller technicalities (like saying "O'Connell St" instead of O'Connell St, a public place"). I highly recommend people to attend court for drink driving cases, and see how stacked against the prosecution the process is. IMO, if you're caught driving and drunk, that should be enough evidence, but there are 52 points to prove (currently) by the prosecuting Garda.

later12

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

typical one rule for us and one rule for them.

Not quite. I knew a guy who took a successful case against his arrest on the grounds that he was allowed consume, or might have consumed, a drink of water prior to his second (official) blood alcohol test at the detaining Garda station. He was still over the limit, but the possibility of having drank something else (I seem to recall he hadn't actually drank anything, but had opened the cap on the bottle of water) might have interfered with the blood alcohol test. After taking his case to the high court, the charges were dropped.

talla10

Ive said this before already so I'll say it one more time and let you get back to your conspiracy theories about guards. In this case the only charges preferred was unauthorised taking (effectively stealing) the car & dangerous driving. These charges have not been dismissed the case resumes on Monday.

There was never a charge against the guard for drink driving because the guard was taken to hospital before the gardai arrived at scene of accident. A blood, urine or breath sample must be obtained from a suspect within 3 hours of driving. Knowing this the guy fled the hospital without treatment & before guards arrived there. He wouldn't answer his door when gardai called and gardai have no right to enter a dwelling under those circumstances. Only after 3 hours had expired & it would not be lawful to obtain a sample did he speak to gardai.

This case was investigated by the Garda Ombudsman and I honestly don't believe any guard in this case tried to 'get their mate off' they gave evidence that he drank alcohol in pub on duty and that he had no permission to take vehicle. These are the facts based on law & from what was reported. Please resume ignoring the truth and start the 'typical guard gets away with it' nonsense.

talla10

Apologies lads I only noticed now the top story, I was only referring to the bottom story about the crash. Sorry! I see lad on top story got away with it- very frustrating but happens more often than you think guilty ones getting off- our justice system is based on principle that it's better to let 100 guilty men walk free rather than imprison 1 innocent one