Gardai Behaving Badly

A GARDA is facing charges of punching a female security guard twice in the face and her male colleague once during a Christmas party with colleagues in a Galway city nightclub.




At a special sitting of Galway District Court yesterday, Stephen Moore, of Danesfort Apartments, Castle Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3, who has been stationed at Pearse Street Garda station for 6½ years, denied assaulting Andrea Flood at Karma nightclub, Ball Alley Lane, Galway, on December 5th, 2009.



He also denied assaulting her colleague, Aidan Shortall, and breaching the peace.



The case is being prosecuted by State solicitor Willie Kennedy on behalf of the DPP, following an inquiry by the Garda Ombudsman.



Judge Mary Fahy said the evidence painted a picture of a saloon brawl in a western, with people throwing punches in all directions.



The court heard up to 15 gardaí from Dublin went to Galway for a Christmas party, and went for a meal before going to Karma night-club, attached to the Skeffington Arms Hotel, Eyre Square, Galway.



The group was given free admission to the club when they told door staff they were gardaí.



Three bouncers and the night-club manager, Gareth Ward, gave evidence they noticed one of the group lifting people up off the dance floor and they warned him to stop as it was potentially dangerous to others.



Garda Moore, they said, was warned on three occasions to stop this behaviour before two of the bouncers – Aidan Shortall and Damien O’Boyle – put him in arm locks and marched him off the dance floor. He became violent towards them, they said.



Others in the group, Mr Shortall said, shouted at him to let the garda go. “One fella said, ‘If you don’t get your effin’ hands off him, I’ll arrest you.’ . . . At that point I didn’t know they were guards, they never said so. We were getting pushed and shoved.”



Mr Shortall said he was grabbed around the neck from behind by a man who started choking him and dragging him off Garda Moore.



He had to let his grip go and at that stage Garda Moore, he said, turned and punched him in the face.



He said he was dragged outside by the man holding him from behind and was hit one blow on the back of the head which made him so dizzy he wanted to vomit. He said the man had told him he was going to teach him a lesson.



Mr Shortall said that when he heard later that night they were gardaí, he told gardaí in Galway he did not want to make a complaint or press charges.



Andrea Flood said she saw the melee and was about to go out the exit when Mr Moore, who had been put out seconds earlier by her colleagues, came back in and punched her twice in the mouth.



Uniformed gardaí arrived and Garda Moore was handed over to Sgt Anne Boland by Mr Shortall. He was taken to Galway Garda station and released a short time later without charge, when Sgt Boland learned the bouncers did not want to press charges. Gerard McDonnell of the Garda Ombudsman’s office gave evidence he interviewed Garda Moore on July 2nd, 2010, and he said: “At no point did I assault anybody. I feel I was assaulted myself.”



Garda Moore told the hearing he had been dancing with friends and had picked one up in a hug when a bouncer told him aggressively to stop. He said he apologised but that a short time later two bouncers grabbed him and forced his arms behind his back, pushed his head down and began to frogmarch him off the dance floor. “I didn’t strike anybody that night. It’s my belief I was assaulted by door staff and that I was unlawfully arrested,” he said.



The hearing continues today.