Garda suspended for giving bike to pensioner is cleared
Officer’s three-year expulsion like ‘using sledgehammer to crack a nut’
A GARDA who was suspended for three years for giving an elderly man an unclaimed bicycle from a station storeroom during the pandemic has been cleared of wrongdoing.
The Garda Representative Association has heavily criticised management for putting the officer through the ordeal and likened the action to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
The garda’s reputation has been severely damaged, the GRA said, and the action has had a profound effect on the officer.
It is understood that it happened in a station in the Midlands during the Covid-19 pandemic, where an elderly man had spoken to gardaí about being unable to get around as his own bicycle had broken. An investigation was launched into the incident in early 2020 which resulted in Garda detectives seizing the bike and searching the garda’s home in June 2020. While the garda was reinstated in August last year, an internal disciplinary investigation continued meaning the garda was put on ‘restricted duties’, meaning he could have no interaction with the public.
He faced several disciplinary charges including discreditable conduct, misuse of property, neglect of duty and disobedience. A disciplinary board comprising senior gardaí threw out the charges against the officer and a report will now be sent to Garda Headquarters on the matter.
Commissioner Drew Harris will now decide to either accept or reject the findings of that disciplinary board. The garda had given the bicycle to the man but had not filled out the proper paperwork, leading to a disciplinary investigation being launched.
There was never any indication or suggestion that the garda in question was ‘pulling some sort of stroke’ or that the garda had ‘anticipated any money or favour for doing this’, sources have told the Irish Daily Mail.
The entire saga was an example of a disconnect between management and the officers on the ground, the GRA added.
One source explained: ‘This was a case of a very well-respected garda looking out for a vulnerable person in their community. Nothing more. Nothing less.
‘Because the paperwork wasn’t filled out, this officer has had to worry about losing their job all the while they’re having their reputation damaged because people will think there’s no smoke without fire.’
GRA general secretary Ronan
Slevin said his organisation welcomed the decision to clear the officer but said serious reputational damage was done to An Garda Síochána as a whole.
He said: ‘We of course welcome the panel’s decision to recommend that the Commissioner completely clears the member of any wrongdoing and look forward to the publication of the full report.
‘This was a case where good, decent community policing, which is at the very heart of why we are trusted by the people we serve, was blown apart and relationships destroyed.’
GRA president Brendan O’Connor added that the case is evidence that the ‘personal touch’ within the force ‘had been driven out of the organisation’.
Garda Headquarters said it does not comment on disciplinary processes.
‘There’s no smoke without fire’