Garda: I can make you get cancer with tinker’s curse
Ex-sergeant launched ‘evil’ tirade after his arrest for drink-driving
A RETIRED Garda sergeant launched a tirade of ‘vile and evil’ abuse at former colleagues after he was arrested for drinkdriving, telling them their children would ‘die writhing of cancer’.
Joseph Kiely, 64, told colleagues they would die, never have children, and if they did, their children would die.
The ex-sergeant was arrested after he was involved in a road accident outside the Garda station in Donegal town with another motorist, Shirley Walsh, 63, in the early hours of October 11, 2016
At the scene, he accused her of orchestrating the accident and said she would die of cancer.
Sadly, Ms Walsh passed away from cancer some time after the accident. When he was arrested Kiely told gardaí he had inherited ‘the tinker’s curse of cancer’ in a dark place in Connemara. In the station he told the Sergeant Oliver Devanney that he had the power of cancer over him.
Sgt Devanney said that he added that gardaí were a ‘f ***** g disgrace’. Kiely, of Old Golf Course Road, Donegal town, was remanded in custody. Yesterday at Donegal Town District Court he was convicted of drink driving at Quay Street. He had a reading of 51mcgs of alcohol per 100ml of breath, the court heard.
Judge Kevin Kilrane said that in 34 years in the legal profession, he had never heard such ‘evil utterings’. ‘I am not saying this man is evil, but what he said is evil,’ the judge said yesterday in jailing him for two months.
Kiely, who is also a former solicitor, repeatedly told Sergeant Devanney and Garda Seán Rogers in Donegal town Garda station that they would be dead with cancer within a few years, the court heard. He said that Garda Rogers would never have children, but if he did, they too would die writhing of cancer.
In evidence, Sgt Devanney told the court that he arrested the defendant after his Nissan Almera car was in collision with a Mondeo car driving by Ms Walsh, Drumnacroile, Ballintra, at 3.14am.
The court heard Kiely repeatadded edly told the gardaí that his arrest had been ‘orchestrated’.
The ex-sergeant made no apology for his outburst to the gardaí, but repeatedly claimed that he had been hounded out of Donegal town in 2012.
He told the court said he had made 100 pages of complaints about alleged harassment to gardaí but they had gone unheeded. Kiely said: ‘I have no life, I am a prisoner in my own home and can’t leave to go to the supermarket or the post office.’
He said he made Sgt Devanney and Garda Rogers aware of his complaints, but that they had not lifted a finger. Kiely said had gone to Cork to get away but ‘it started up again there’.
He claimed that cars had been outside his home and were constantly watching. The defendant that the court would be ‘doing me wrong today’. And he called for An Garda Síochána to be disbanded.
Judge Kilrane repeatedly asked the ex-sergeant why he had made the threats of cancer deaths to his former colleagues. Kiely replied: ‘Because they did not lift a finger to help me.’
In sentencing, Judge Kilrane said that it was clear that Garda Rogers, who was a decent and honest officer, had had great difficulty in giving his evidence in the witness box.
Kiely, 63, was jailed for two months, fined €500 and banned from driving for two years for drink driving.
Recognisances for circuit court appeal were fixed on the defendant’s own bond of €100 with a surety of €1,500, €500 of which was to be lodged in cash.
Related charges of careless driving, non-display of insurance, no tax and non-display of tax were struck out by Judge Kilrane
‘They did not lift a finger to help me’