Garda sent pic to work
A GARDA who was drunk when she sent her partner a picture of drugs and a text message saying, “Baby, I got you this”, has been given six months in jail for stealing a €70 cannabis exhibit from her station.
Garda Holly Lane (34), denied theft of the cannabis evidence seized by another officer, unlawful possession of the cannabis and having it for sale or supply at Store Street station on December 12, 2021.
However, Judge John Hughes found her guilty yesterday evening following a non-jury trial at Dublin District Court.
He imposed a nine-month term but suspended the final three months on condition she remained on supervised probation for two years and attended counselling for alcohol and drug addiction.
Lane had been suspended since the date of the incident, and her Garda career is over, her barrister said.
Garda Sergeant Coleen Doherty told the hearing she had been the station officer in charge on the date, and Garda Lane’s shift started at 7pm.
However, by 1.30am she had not seen Lane for several hours and went to seek her out. Garda Peter Byrne in the community policing office told her Lane was “unsteady on her feet”.
Sergeant Doherty grew concerned and searched for Lane with Garda Sergeant Niall Godfrey.
She was found in the second-floor changing room “dishevelled looking”, and her tie and shoes were wet.
Sergeant Doherty believed that Lane was intoxicated from the way she presented and spoke to her.
They brought her to the TV room, and Sergeant Godfrey and Doherty looked for her bag to get her car keys after they decided she would have to be brought home. But they found a half bottle of vodka in her bag and a quarter bottle of vodka in her changing-room locker. Lane told them she had taken a “sip” and insisted she was not intoxicated.
She thought her car keys were in a folder in the community office where she had worked earlier.
Sergeant Doherty went there, saw her folder on a desk, and then located her bag, which she opened.
There was a plastic bag inside and a “strong smell of cannabis from that”.
The sergeant was later shown a screenshot posted by Lane to a work Whatsapp group. It featured an image and text saying, “Look what I got for you”.
Sergeant Doherty feared the image was of the bag of cannabis, and it may have been a drug supply offence.
Sergeant Godfrey confirmed she was drunk and said Lane was “banging into walls”.
Garda Philip Walsh had seized the cannabis earlier that month and was unable to place it in the drug safe because a printer wasn’t working to label the package. He put it in his own locker. But on the day of the offence, he noticed it had been rummaged.
The court heard that the contents of another locker were emptied on the floor.
Lane did not testify in the trial but gave a statement to Garda HQ that she had been in the office to work on files for two drug prosecutions.
She had white “baggies”, digital weighing scales, and grinders to prepare exhibits.
She claimed she did not have enough bags but saw some more in a locker and took them out. Lane claimed other items “fell” out.
She admitted she later went to the