A secondary schoolteacher has claimed she \u201cscreamed out in agony\u201d after a male Garda allegedly twisted her arm until it broke following her arrest after an altercation on a night out.<\/p>\n
Denise Callinan, at the time a 23-year-old physical education and biology teacher, told the High Court she was subjected to a 30-minute-long interrogation by five garda\u00ed at Millstreet Garda station in Galway city in the early hours of October 19th, 2019.<\/p>\n
Callinan has sued the Garda Commissioner seeking damages for the alleged assault at the station.<\/p>\n
Her civil action opened before Judge Tony O\u2019Connor and a jury on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Callinan told the court she was arrested by two male garda\u00ed after getting into a \u201cheated\u201d argument with her brother near Eyre Square at about 3am on the date in question.<\/p>\n
She said having been taken to Millstreet station, she was asked \u201cincessant questions\u201d in the reception area regarding her brother\u2019s whereabouts and felt the questioning garda\u00ed \u201cwere getting furious at me as they felt I had information that I didn\u2019t have. Then I was approached by a male Garda from behind. He grabbed my left wrist and twisted it higher and higher while shouting: \u2018Tell us! Tell us! Tell us! <\/p>\n
\u201cI could tell something had happened as I screamed out in agony and was in severe pain. I knew it was broken, I played sport for years. I knew that this man has broken my arm, I was hysterical,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The court heard a subsequent X-ray found she had suffered a spiral fracture of her left humerus.<\/p>\n
Callinan said she had suffered from severe mental health problems after the alleged assault, culminating in \u201ca pretty severe incident of self-harm\u201d following a prolonged period of sleeplessness in September 2020. <\/p>\n
Callinan acknowledged she had pleaded guilty to resisting arrest on the night of October 19th, saying she did so to \u201cprotect my career\u201d. She said what had happened that night was \u201cnot my finest hour\u201d and that she regretted resisting arrest, but had done so as she felt like she \u201cwas being attacked\u201d. <\/p>\n
When it was put to her that she had said to her brother at the time, \u201cyou hurt my arm\u201d, she replied, \u201cthat is not true at all\u201d. <\/p>\n
She was told the garda\u00ed present had insisted that she was not thrown on the ground when arrested. In response, she said: \u201cI have very good co-ordination and would not just fall to the ground.\u201d <\/p>\n
Informed that a Garda witness would be testifying that, while in a cell at Millstreet, she shouted at her brother in an adjacent cell \u201cyou broke my arm\u201d, Callinan replied, \u201che was saying, \u2018you broke my sister\u2019s arm, how could you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Put to her that all of the garda\u00ed present on the night would say she was not thrown into the cell after the alleged arm-breaking incident, Callinan said, \u201cof course they\u2019re all going to agree, they\u2019re one big family\u201d.<\/p>\n
The trial continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A secondary schoolteacher has claimed she \u201cscreamed out in agony\u201d after a male Garda allegedly twisted her arm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,68634,68635,68636,11408,68637,18,18804,13,14,68638,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,4238,19863,7607,68639,7,8,14529,14889],"class_list":{"0":"post-319040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-building-exterior","11":"tag-built-structure","12":"tag-courthouse","13":"tag-day","14":"tag-dublin-republic-of-ireland","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-famous-place","17":"tag-featured-news","18":"tag-featurednews","19":"tag-four-courts","20":"tag-headlines","21":"tag-ie","22":"tag-ireland","23":"tag-latest-news","24":"tag-latestnews","25":"tag-main-news","26":"tag-mainnews","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-outdoors","29":"tag-republic-of-ireland","30":"tag-street","31":"tag-tilt","32":"tag-top-stories","33":"tag-topstories","34":"tag-tree","35":"tag-white"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116009938651703402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319040","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=319040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}