A High Court judge has asked for information about an allegation that a senior garda shared a photograph taken inside a courtroom of a whistleblower and three people accompanying the man.<\/p>\n
Any audio or visual recording of court proceedings is forbidden under the court rules.<\/p>\n
Conor Duff, for Det Chief Supt Brian O\u2019Reilly, told Judge Miche\u00e1l O\u2019Higgins at the High Court on Wednesday that he was putting the respondents, the Commissioner of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, on notice of the matter and sought the court\u2019s direction on how to proceed.<\/p>\n
Duff said O\u2019Reilly, who has made protected disclosures regarding the safety of gun holsters used by the force, received the photo from another garda who is allegedly part of a WhatsApp group with Supt Liam White.<\/p>\n
The barrister said the image allegedly originated from an account associated with White, who had asked members of the group to identify one of the men seen with O\u2019Reilly.<\/p>\n
Duff said he was not aware if other similar images existed in the group, but said he wanted to bring the matter to the judge\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
Duff said the image showed three individuals accompanying O\u2019Reilly in court, and that the account associated with White referenced one of the individuals and stated: \u201cI recognise the face, but I don\u2019t know the name.\u201d<\/p>\n
The barrister said it was clear the image was taken inside a courtroom and said a \u201cconfidential\u201d individual told his client that White had taken the photo and inquired as to the identity of the individual.<\/p>\n
The judge asked any party with knowledge of what happened to write to the court. He said he would not indicate a formal inquiry, but would familiarise himself with the \u201carchitecture of prohibitions that exist\u201d before the matter comes before the court again.<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s hearing related to an appeal brought by O\u2019Reilly, who had referenced White in his protected disclosure.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly has claimed he was penalised by, or through, the Garda Commissioner\u2019s office after he made his disclosure regarding the holsters, but he lost his claim at a November sitting of Dublin Circuit Civil Court.<\/p>\n
He claimed he had been penalised financially and marginalised within the force, such that his house was at risk if his now-reduced pay was not restored by Garda management. <\/p>\n
The detective has claimed that \u201cunsafe and defective leather holsters\u201d, made and supplied by an equine saddlery in Kildare, may have been responsible for the serious accidental self-wounding of a Garda on protection duty at the residence of the Israeli ambassador in Dublin in June 2020.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly told the court a pistol could be removed from the leather holster even when the retention strap or safety clasp was closed.<\/p>\n
He told the court in written evidence that the holsters should have been supplied by an established firearms accessories manufacturer.<\/p>\n
Six days after the accidental shooting outside the ambassador\u2019s home, Stephen Silver murdered Det Gda Colm Horkan with that officer\u2019s own gun in Castlerea, Co Roscommon.<\/p>\n
Silver, of Foxford, Co Mayo, had grappled with Gda Horkan and took control of the pistol, which had been holstered on his hip. Silver kept firing at Horkan until the gun was empty, causing catastrophic injuries.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly is appealing the Circuit Court\u2019s decision. The appeal was heard at the High Court sitting in Galway on March 19th and in Dublin on March 26th. <\/p>\n
At the High Court the judge adjourned the matter to May 19th for further submissions.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly submitted to the November sitting of the Circuit Court that he and another officer investigating Horkan\u2019s death had been informed that Silver told garda\u00ed, while in custody, that he had been able to reach down and pull Horkan\u2019s pistol from the holster.<\/p>\n
Silver was sentenced in April 2023 to life imprisonment with a minimum time to be served of 40 years for murdering a Garda acting in the course of his duties. Silver is appealing against his conviction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A High Court judge has asked for information about an allegation that a senior garda shared a photograph…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,24443,207238,18,13,14,6,10476,19,17,11,12,15,16,2354,5,13172,207239,7,8,4635],"class_list":{"0":"post-472375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-circuit-court","12":"tag-colm-horkan","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-high-court","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-latest-news","21":"tag-latestnews","22":"tag-main-news","23":"tag-mainnews","24":"tag-mayo","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-roscommon","27":"tag-stephen-silver","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topstories","30":"tag-whatsapp"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116531414008667407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472375","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=472375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472375\/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=472375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}