‘CORRUPT GARDA BETRAYED FORCE’
Drug-using officer passed sensitive information to criminal gang
A JUDGE told a disgraced garda who passed sensitive information to criminal gangs she had let down her family, her colleagues and her community.
Drug-using cop Jimell Henry, from Cairns Hill, Sligo, also heard the damage she had done to the force was “incalculable”.
She admitted accessing the Garda Pulse system from her base in Dublin to give information to a criminal gang allegedly in a feud with another mob in Sligo.
Sligo Circuit Court heard the 36-year-old had been in contact with known criminals nicknamed “The Pharmacy” and “The Child”.
Judge Keenan Johnson said that by her actions she had “let her colleagues and her community down and the resulting damage to the force is incalculable”.
Henry pleaded guilty to three charges of disclosing information obtained during the course of her duty as a garda in Co Dublin knowing the disclosure of that information was likely to have a harmful effect, between December 16, 2014 and January 14, 2015.
She also admitted four charges of disclosing operational details without proper authority between the same dates.
The defendant also pleaded guilty to two charges of forging prescriptions for medication and two charges of giving false information to obtain prescribed medication from chemists in Sligo.
Supt Jim Delaney told the court that gardai in Sligo were concerned in 2015 and 2016 that sensitive information was finding its way to a Sligo criminal gang allegedly in a feud with another group.
He said Henry had contacted a Sligo officer pointing out that sensitive Garda information was appearing on social media.
A “complex multi-disciplinary” investigation was launched and it was found Henry had made 980 queries in a fortnight and 73% were about Sligo on the Pulse system.
She was spotted by gardai in a meeting with a well-known criminal in Ballisodare and told officers she had met him to fix a hair straightener.
The court heard she contacted her criminal associates by what she termed a “gouger phone”, the court was told.
Henry was arrested on January 16, 2015. Supt Delaney agreed she was compromised by habitual drug use but added she was a willing participant with one of the gangs.
Defence Counsel Kerida Naidoo said his client’s offending had only been for a period of five months and she had pleaded guilty at an early stage saving a four-week trial.
Judge Johnson said he would sentence the defendant on June 26.
YESTERDAY, SLIGO
You have let colleagues down and damage to the force is incalculable JUDGE KEENAN JOHNSON