Inspector denies forcing statement
WHISTLEBLOWER Garda Keith Harrison’s partner withdrew her statement, in which she alleged he was ‘obsessive’ and ‘controlling’, after the couple got back together, the Charleton tribunal has heard.
Inspector Goretti Sheridan, who took Marissa Simms’ statement in October 2013, said Ms Simms withdrew it the following January as the couple had reunited over Christmas.
She denied suggestions from Hugh Hartnett SC, for Ms Simms, that she had forced the mother-of-two to make a statement in the first place. The Disclosures Tribunal, chaired by Judge Peter Charleton, is exploring Garda Harrison’s claim that he was a victim of a five-year campaign of Garda intimidation, after arresting a fellow officer for drink driving in Athlone in 2009.
During cross examination at the tribunal, Insp Sheridan agreed that it took more than eight and a half hours to take Ms Simms’ statement.
Mr Hartnett suggested the inspector had asked ‘intrusive and intimate’ questions.
‘I don’t believe so,’ she said. ‘It’s my job to ask probing questions... to tease it out.’
Counsel asked if it had been ‘any of your business’ to ask about the failing relationship.
She replied: ‘If it amounts to a criminal offence, yes.’
Judge Charleton said the case being made, as he understood it, was that the statement was not taken from a desire to protect Marissa and her children, but out of malice against the ‘unpopular’ Garda Harrison whom the Inspector and her colleagues were ‘out to get’.
Insp Sheridan said she understood this, but insisted: ‘That’s not the case. I did not know Keith Harrison.’
The tribunal continues today.