The Strong Arm of The Law

Sunday, Sep. 21, 2003 By MAIREAD CAREY | DUBLIN
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Grainne Walsh will never forget the men who assaulted her. She often sees them walking the streets of Dublin — in their police uniforms. Although the Irish government paid some €50,000 in compensation to the young fashion designer, the officers who assaulted her were never disciplined. Only scant details of other such incidents are ever published. But according to Father Peter McVerry, a Jesuit priest and activist who tracks the cases, in the past five years police have paid out more than €6 million to settle cases involving questionable conduct of the police, or gardaí. And last week, a report by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) — its third on Ireland in 10 years — suggested Walsh's mistreatment is part of a persistent culture of violence and poor oversight in the Irish police.

Walsh, 35, and her sister Ciara were walking through trendy Grafton Street with friends on a cool night in April 1998 when an unmarked police car reversed toward them. To avoid getting run over, Walsh banged on the trunk — for which she was arrested and hurled into the back of a police van. When Ciara protested, she was arrested too. On their way to the station, Walsh says she was held by the hair while a policeman knelt on her back. When the van door opened, she was shoved out and fell head-first on the ground, gashing her chin. Her jeans ripped as she was dragged through the doors of the station. The sisters ultimately sued, prompting the police to retaliate by charging them for assault and drunkenness. A €udge denounced this as "disgraceful" and threw out the charges. The sisters went on to the high court, but eventually received an out-of-court settlement. The officers were never punished.

Our prisons remain in serious breach of international standards on human rights

— VALERIE BRESNIHAN, Irish Penal Reform Trust
According to the CPT, this sort of abuse is not unusual. The report doesn't offer a definitive or statistically broad overview of the problem, but it is troubling just the same. The CPT's delegation, including medical staff, spent just eight days in Ireland in May of last year and visited only a handful of police stations, but in that short period of time its investigation turned up evidence of three new cases in which fresh injuries were consistent with detainees' tales of beatings while in custody. The committee — an offshoot of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization to protect human rights — highlighted "the number and consistency of the allegations of ill treatment" and called on the Irish authorities "to intensify their efforts to prevent ill-treatment by the police."

The allegations contained in the CPT's report ranged from kicks and punches to severe beatings. Some detainees claimed they had been assaulted in a way that avoided leaving visible marks, including baton blows to a telephone directory placed against the head. "They may be using diplomatic language, but it is clear that the committee are not referring to a few bad apples — they are saying Ireland has a problem," says Aisling Reidy, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

Reidy points out that Justice Minister Michael McDowell "has had this report since last December. In that time he has introduced new legislation to give the police more extensive powers of detention, but he hasn't brought in any extra safeguards to protect those in custody." McDowell stood up for Ireland's cops, warning that "the mere making of an allegation is not proof of the truth," but said that "if there is a small number of police abusing prisoners, that is of course a concern."

The CPT's findings on Irish prisons are just as grim as those on the police. The delegation heard many complaints of assaults against inmates, and highlighted one case where a prisoner's head was kicked "like a football," leaving his jaw broken. In the three prisons visited it found that inmates in need of psychiatric care were "frequently placed in unfurnished padded cells" where conditions were often "filthy," sometimes left naked or in their underwear. The delegation called these practices "inhuman and degrading" and called on the authorities to end them immediately. The government has promised new observation cells for inmates with psychiatric problems, but according to Valerie Bresnihan of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, "they aren't abolishing padded cells, just revamping them. Our prisons remain in serious breach of international standards on human rights," she says.

The Irish government has long promised an independent police-complaints commission, but even if it is created, critics fear the vast majority of complaints will still be investigated by the police themselves. Walsh is hopeful the Council of Europe report will embarrass the government into action. "So far," she says, "they just haven't taken it seriously."