If you are a regular reader you know the drill by now – The Donegal News arrives in the house and I get bits read out to me and eventually I go ‘WHAT?!’
This weeks ‘gem’ in the court reports is on page 30 of last Friday’s edition.
Footage of street row ‘disappeared ‘ from phone.
A District judge dismissed the public order charges against a Letterkenny resident upon hearing that video evidence filmed by the defendant had disappeared from his movile phone while in garda custody.
Edidjus Morkuna (27) …who represented himself was charged with threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour in a public place, failing to comply with a direction given by a member of the Garda Siochana and wilful obstruction.
The defendant was arrested after coming across Gardai arresting other members sof the Lithuanian community in Letterkenny last month.
‘There is a small community of Lithuanians here in the town and we know each other well., so when we saw some of friends on Main Street after leaving Sister Sara’s, we went over to say hello.
I then saw that one of our Lithuanian friends was being arrested so I decided to film the arrest with my mobile phone just in case it would be needed as evidence.
I was told to ‘get the f*** out of here with your mobile phone’, they then grabbed and handcuffed me and put me into the Garda van.
As I was sitting in the van, I heard someone walking past and I asked if they could loosen the handcuffs as they were really hurting me. I was told to ‘f*** off’ and ‘shut up’.
‘The Gardai then took me to the station where I told them that I had chest pain and my wrists were sore and I asked them for a doctor.
I also asked them where my phone was, it was not mentioned in the custody record. When I was released they told me ‘You can go and see a doctor now’ and as I went outside a Garda came out of the darkness and gave me back my mobile phone.
The footage I had filmed was no longer on it. It I was guilty of the offences I am charged with the footage would have shown it.’ said Morkunas.
Garda O’ Mahony told the court he ‘believed’ the defendant was filming, upon being questioned by the judge who said ‘You took an oath to tell the whole truth, why did you not mention this before?’.
The Garda then replied that he ‘was not aware’ if Morkunas had been filming or not and that it wasn’t the offence that he had been arrested for.
Judge Kilrane again asked Garda O’Mahony why he had not told him that the defendant had been filming the his evidence. The Garda said he had ‘no reason’. Dismissing the case, Judge Kilrane said he expects ‘the whole truth’ and not parts to be ‘left out’.
Is this stuff happening everywhere in the country regularly? Am I wrong to be surprised reading it?
The story below this on page 30 was about someone who ‘Tried to frustrate Garda procedure by wetting himself’. I’ll leave that one alone.
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I trust His Honour has reported this to the Garda Ombudsman?
It’s absolutely outrageous what the Gardaí get away with in this country, from the Garda station to perjuring themselves in the courts.
Off the top of my head, I can think of.. at least four people who have been f-ed over, shall we say, by the police when they absolutely shouldn’t have been. (I’ve no reason to think that any of these people made things up, or exaggerated their stories.) Possible offences committed by the police against these people alone include assault, false imprisonment, false criminal charges, denial of contact with legal representative while in custody, giving false evidence in a court of law.
And, of course, what the police know is that, if someone is charged with a criminal offence, it is in the accused’s interests to plead guilty in the hope of getting lenient treatment from the judge; what a guilty plea means, however, is that – apart from accepting the crime of which they are accused – no evidence can be provided by the accused, so there is no opportunity for them to give their version of events. (A guilty plea could still result in a criminal conviction, of course.)
A not-guilty plea does allow the accused to give evidence; however the risk is, even if that evidence is accepted by the judge, that if the judge finds the accused guilty, the accused has demonstrated their lack of remorse for their crime by entering such a plea, and therefore risks a more severe penalty.
The Gardaí know exactly what they are doing, and with an ineffective Garda Commission to investigate complaints, that probably will never change.
well, it is Donegal dear, hmm? it does raise the issue of how evidence is handled/ judged/ kept secure.
i find an ambivalent attitude to gay men and homophobic violence in my own case, which demonstrates another lack of attention to our rights. only when my partner was actually seriously assaulted near our home did they start to take our complaints about attacks seriously and “name” it as homophobic – i had to get a leading local politician and the garda gay liaison people to weigh in with the local constabulary. as one incident was being assessed by a group of gards, one asked us ‘wouldn’t we just move house’ (instead of having to police the area!) after the most recent two attacks on the house this week, caught on cctv footage, i was informed they were not sure if the footage would convince a judge – even tho’ 2 yobs wearing the same clothes as the perps, were apprehended just up the road. it’s just a messy situation that should not happen. i’m guessing that nothing on the long list of “incidents” has been investigated. while the donegal case is alarming from what i read, at least the case has been made more visible to public scrutiny of a sort.
You should hear the ones I can tell about my town down through the years
cops are a law unto themselves and have everyone scared shitless of them.
why didn’t the judge do the cops for perjury? Because they’re also scared shitless of them.
banana republic; thanks for the story
To be fair to our Gardaí, I really don’t think this is a particularly Irish phenomenon. Take a quick glance at cops around the world, and it soon becomes clear that there’s something about the jobs that attracks the sleazier, power-hungry, racist type of individual.
I once knew a retired cop from Chicago. He admitted to me that he and his buddies would routinely pull over a black person if they saw him driving a nice car. And when I say “admitted” I mean as in he admitted to pulling his pants on every morning. It was just standard operating proceedure to him.
Secular thoughts on recent events - Page 3 - Politics.ie // Nov 27, 2009 at 02:45
[...] Irish cops are a law unto themselves. Every Minister for Justice alway trots (pun intended) out the line every year about " a few bad apples" instead of tackling the issue of irish police. Deaths in custody investigated under archaic pieces of law, whistle-blowers going to jail, people who complain about ill-treatment getting harrassed, crime detection level a disgrace. Templemore produces lard. the irish police disgust me, always have, always will. Maman Poulet Court Reports and telling the ‘whole truth’ [...]
Hello, my name is Egidijus Morkunas, answering to “Keith: I trust His Honour has reported this to the Garda Ombudsman?” I did report this matter to the Garda Ombudsman, and it was admitted for investigation, I am meeting an investigating officer today for an interview, also the actual phone that I used on that night will be taken to forensic lab for examination. I hope the Ombutsman will do their job, and the outcome will be satisfactory. Also at the moment, I am considering taking action against the member of Garda who is responsible for phisical and psichological damages I have received.
Egidijus, thanks for letting us know and best of luck with your meeting.