{"id":313831,"date":"2026-01-31T20:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/313831\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T20:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T20:08:08","slug":"long-and-winding-road-from-whatsapp-messages-to-the-limerick-garda-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/313831\/","title":{"rendered":"Long and winding road from WhatsApp messages to the Limerick garda trial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The probe into fixed charge notices was legal, but many questions remain\u00a0\u2014 including whether it was even necessary, writes Mick Clifford<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Mick Clifford: Long and winding road from WhatsApp messages to the Limerick garda trial\" alt=\"Mick Clifford: Long and winding road from WhatsApp messages to the Limerick garda trial\" src=\"\/cms_media\/module_img\/9905\/4952663_3_articlemedium_Garda_20Superintendent_20Eamonn_20O_27Neill_20and_20Sgt_20Annmaire_20Hassett_1_.jpg\" fetchpriority=\"high\" loading=\"eager\"  \/> <\/p>\n<p>Husband and wife, retired superintendent Eamon O&#8217;Neill and Sergeant Anne-Maire Hassett. In 2019, Mr O&#8217;Neill was arrested and taken to Athlone for questioning; Sgt Hassett was held in their home for two hours. This week, they and the other three defendants in the Limerick Garda trial have been found not guilty of all charges. Picture: Brendan Gleeson <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The probe into fixed charge notices was legal, but many questions remain\u00a0\u2014 including whether it was even necessary,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,21031,27,18,13,14,11167,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,152862,47806,11697,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-313831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-court-of-appeal","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-gardai","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-person-mick-clifford","25":"tag-place-limerick","26":"tag-road-safety","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115991524331995600","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}