Gardai 'tried to quash traffic prosecutions'

Four serving & one retired cop deny 39 charges

- BY DAVID RALEIGH

THE trial of four gardai and a retired superintendent centres on drivers allegedly asking officers to intervene in court cases, a jury heard yesterday.

They were allegedly involved in attempts to quash potential or pending road traffic prosecutions against motorists in the mid-west.

The five deny 39 offences of attempting to pervert the course of justice, before a jury of eight men and four women at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court.

They are ex-Superintendent Eamon O'Neill, serving Sergeants Michelle Leahy and Anne-Marie Hassett, and Garda Tom McGlinchey and Garda Colm Geary, all within the Limerick and Clare Divisions.

Prosecutor Carl Hanahoe told the jury that road traffic laws or rules of the road were designed as a deterrent "to keep us safe on the roads".

He said it was not unusual for motorists to "have picked up a mobile phone while driving, or been distracted and driven 55kph in a 50kph zone, but we take the points, we don't like it but that is the system".