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PB February/March 2024 February/March 2024 13
T
he Charlton tribunal hammered
former Garda Commissioner Martin
Callinan for making hay with
mistaken allegations of sexual
abuse levelled by Tusla, the child-
protection agency, against whistleblower,
Sergeant Maurice McCabe. The tribunal ran
from February 2017 to October 2018
investigating McCabe’s allegations of low
standards in Bailieboro Garda station and the
actions of certain gardaí.
The tribunal pushed an increase in the
accountability of rank and fi le Garda members.
One of the features of the tribunal was the
campaign of ‘calumny’ against the
whistleblower by senior Garda management.
Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan was
shown to hold such people in disdain and
referred to the conduct of Sergeant McCabe
as “disgusting”.
In the years around 2017-8 there wasn’t a
day that Bailieboro Garda station was not in
the news but at the time of the Charlton
Management
retaliate
against
innocent garda
Garda Aidan Kelly faces a spurious prosecution for stealing a doctor’s
notepad simply because of the contrived investigation of a complaint he
made against a retired garda might embarrass senior Garda management
By J Vivian Cooke
Judge Peter Chrleton‘s
Disclosures Tribunl, 2017-2018,
cstigted mngement of
Bilieboro Grd Sttion (left)
And now this...
Tribunal there was another scandal taking
place in Bailieboro.
The di erence was that this scandal arose
from the actions of senior investigators and
Garda management and not the actions of
rank and fi le members.
Nevertheless, it was not in the interests of
local management in that station to attract
further negative attention.
Garda Aidan Kelly was stationed in the same
Bailieboro policing district as his next-door
neighbour until he retired from the Garda.
Their families were of a similar age and some
of their children had gone to school together;
their wives were friends and they socialised
together. But, the two couples’ relationships
became strained and they stopped talking to
each other.
From 2012, Kelly’s neighbour started
Grd ttemped to destroy
whistleblower McCbe
NEWS
14 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 15
engaging in what he saw as minor
provocations, and purveying rude gestures
which were initially dismissed by Kelly.
However, the behaviour began to escalate and
in August 2017 Kelly alleges CCTV shows his
neighbour attempting to break into his house
while he was on holidays. This caused Kelly to
fear for the safety of his family, especially
since he sometimes worked nights away from
them.
This concern, after years of mounting stress
from the campaign of harassment, prompted
him to raise the matter formally with the
Superintendent in Bailieboro. In several
statements, Kelly gave a very detailed account
of the incidents, supported by a time log, with
CCTV and photographs confirmed by the
Superintendent and physical evidence that he
had preserved.
In the absence of progress in the
investigation, it appeared that the campaign
of harassment had intensified, with some
incident or other occurring almost daily. In
February 2018, Kelly’s solicitor wrote to the
Superintendent in Bailieboro about the
inadequacies of the investigation and received
assurances that his fears were being taken
seriously.
This was at the height of the Charlton
tribunal and no person wanted to take
responsibility for the investigation. It was only
when an outsider who had no previous links
to the district became Superintendent that
action was taken. Ann-Marie Lardner was
appointed to investigate though, somewhat
compromisingly, she had worked with the
neighbour as his Sergeant when he first
transferred to Bailieboro in 2009.
The first indication that there was no
willingness to investigate Kelly’s initial 2017
complaint was when he was informed, after
six months, that the investigation could not
be progressed even though the neighbour had
been identified as a person of interest by Kelly
and the then Superintendent. The
investigating ocer never visited the scene or
took any witness statements and crucially the
chief suspect was never spoken to. This file
was closed and Kelly was told that if there
were further incidents he could report them
and action would be taken.
When the newly-arrived Superintendent
read this file he maintained there was enough
evidence in it to direct Ann-Marie Lardner to
obtain a warrant to search the neighbour’s
house, arrest him and question him.
On the basis of the original 2017 complaint,
which gardaí had previously deemed not
possible to progress, a warrant was obtained
in July 2018.
Initially, five gardaí in two patrol cars
attempted to execute the warrant, but, on
finding that the neighbour and his wife had
just left the house and were absent, leaving
the couple’s adult children in the home, they
called the neighbour, and agreed to return the
next day to conduct the search, thereby losing
the normal element of surprise.
Kelly claimed to have CCTV footage of
material being removed from the house by a
third party when the neighbour returned later
that afternoon and says the 20 minutes two
gardaí spent in the home executing the
warrant the next day were only sucient for a
cursory inspection.
Nonetheless, the neighbour was arrested
and taken in custody to Cavan station where
he was questioned about 35 incidents of
harassment. The most serious of the alleged
acts were trespass and attempted burglary of
their home that had prompted Kelly’s initial
formal complaint, but they also included his
neighbour’s illegal discharge of his shotgun
during the birthday party of one of Kelly’s
children; urinating on Kelly’s driveway;
damage to Kelly’s property; and an extensive
campaign of littering Kelly’s property
featuring excrement-filled tissues and bottles
on which the neighbour’s fingerprints were
later found by Garda forensics.
Although his neighbour had made no
comment during his initial questioning, in a
later statement he admitted to sometimes
throwing litter. During this period the
neighbour finally had his firearm seized.
In April 2019 the investigating Detective
Sergeant finally submitted the file to the DPP
though that was unorthodox since the Garda
file had actually been closed.
Ann-Marie Lardner who compiled the file
had just been promoted to the rank of
Inspector and moved to the Divisional
Headquarters in Monaghan. This is where the
Chief Superintendent, who had been assigned
the initial investigation of Kelly’s complaints
against his neighbour, worked.
A decision was returned from the DPP in
August 2019 of no prosecution against the
neighbour. The Kellys were suspicious when
the DPP stated there was a lack of sucient
evidence to prosecute when in fact a great
deal of evidence had been provided to gardaí.
Kelly sought more information through a
Freedom of Information request which
revealed that the recorded PULSE narrative for
each of the 35 incidents which was examined
by Kelly recorded only four of them, randomly,
as crimes; another six incidents had had their
dates recorded incorrectly, pushing them
beyond the statutory time limit for prosecution;
seven incidents where clear irrefutable CCTV
footage was provided or witnessed directly
were recorded as “no CCTV available” or
“CCTV does not show the alleged incident”.
All 18 of the littering incidents were
incorrectly recorded as occurring on the public
roadway and not on Kelly’s property implying
it was not the Kellys who were the injured
party but the public at large. The Kellys
believed there was a deliberate attempt to
ignore available evidence, change dates and
create a narrative that was just not true. These
PULSE incidents were created in April 2018 at
the same time as the file was forwarded to the
DPP for consideration.
This was the moment when everything
changed for Kelly as it was irrefutable
documentary proof that there had been a
deliberate attempt by the investigator Ann-
Marie Lardner and local senior management,
who were aware of what was going, on to
portray a false narrative of what had really
happened to the Kelly family.
It was later discovered that gardaí had
logged three PULSE incidents in September
2018 where Kelly had allegedly committed
acts against the neighbour which were later
used within the file to create the impression
of a tit-for-tat neighbours’ feud.
Kelly had been told by the investigating
garda that the CCTV footage he provided could
not be used in the prosecution although it had
been sent to the DPP.
But it subsequently emerged that despite
several denials the crucial CCTV evidence had
not even been included in the file forwarded
to the DPP.
Likewise one of Kelly’s statements, in which
Kelly alleged the neighbour attempted
the burglary of Kelly’s home, illegally
discharged a shotgun during the birthday
party of one of Kelly’s children, and urinated
on Kelly’s driveway
Kelly
14 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 15
he was critical of the Garda response and
highlighted the danger of the pending statute
of limitations for some incidents, was missing
from the file. This was despite Kelly having
received numerous written communications
from local management that all CCTV and
statements had been included in the original
file.
Even after a review conducted by
management, it still pushed this false
narrative.
The file could have been forwarded in
October 2018 but it was delayed until April
2019 when Lardner was leaving Baileboro and
members of management who had a first-hand
knowledge of what had occurred were in situ.
However, by this time, the investigating
gardaí had turned the focus of their attention
to Kelly himself. Then detective Sergeant Ann-
Marie Lardner accused him of “not being so
innocent” himself.
Kelly was served with disciplinary papers by
the Garda in September 2019 on the basis of
a series of allegations made by his neighbour.
A third party had supported his neighbour’s
accusation but Kelly was able to provide a
recording of a conversation with the third
party, and supporting documentary evidence
that proved their statement and allegation,
were false.
Nevertheless the matter was included in the
file against his neighbour, further advancing
the impression of Kelly being of questionable
character. It did not include the audio which
would have directly contradicted the evidence
of this third party.
The third party’s partner was asked to
coroborate his statement but she refused to
do so.
Bizarrely, his neighbour also rehashed an
allegation he had made in 2015 and which had
been dismissed by both the investigating
Superintendent and the Garda Ombudsman
(GSOC) as vexatious.
Although no complaint had been received
from the allegedly injured party, the
neighbour’s allegation was pursued by local
Garda management under the pretext of
maintaining probity under the Garda Síochána
Discipline Regulations 2007, though the
decision to commence disciplinary
proceedings coincided with Kelly’s Freedom
of Information request.
The allegation against Aidan Kelly was that
he had stolen a doctor’s notepad and used it
to make a number of insurance claims. As well
as being a stretch of the truth, the allegation
on its face didn’t seem to ground any potential
criminality. The first eort any investigator
made to confirm whether the pad had been
taken was at the end of March 2020. The head
doctor at the practice, who might have been
expected to know, stated he had no knowledge
of such a thing happening yet the allegation
had been levied against Kelly a long time
beforehand, in September 2019. The doctor
who allegedly had his notepad stolen was not
spoken to by the Garda until November 2020,
over a year and two months after Kelly was
served with the disciplinary papers, and again
the doctor in question stated he had no
recollection of any of his pads being stolen. It
was egregiously strange.
Nonetheless, Kelly was suspended from the
Garda and in March 2021 the investigating
member contacted Aidan Kelly to tell him he
was to be charged with five counts of
deception under the Theft and Fraud Oences
Act.
After his appearance in court to receive his
book of evidence, the details of Kelly’s arrest
and charge, along with his home address,
were published in the Irish Independent. The
picture of Kelly’s first appearance was used
and there was no mention that he was a
member of An Garda Síochána.
However, the details in the article were
grossly inaccurate and stated that the claims
for which he had been charged dated from
2003 to 2019, with the most recent oence
alleged to have happened in March 2019. The
charges actually related to claims from 2003
to 2008 and Kelly had cancelled the policy
himself in 2010. Kelly asserts that this
information was given to the press by gardaí
and that exaggerating how recent the latest
alleged oence was intended to make the
investigation seem less contrived.
Investigating 13-year-old oences of which
the victims knew nothing might have appeared
even weirder.
Kelly has exhausted the ocial avenues
open to him to address the failures of both the
investigations into himself and into his
original complaint.
In June 2021 the Garda Anti Corruption Unit
(GACU) was formed and Kelly took his
complaints to it. He had a number of meetings
in 2021 with ocers from the unit at which he
outlined his concerns and detailed the
discrepancies he had uncovered between the
PULSE record and the file submitted to the
DPP, as well as a missing statement and
crucially the omission of CCTV footage from
that file.
After several months, Kelly was told that
GACU would not be pursuing his case because,
as he was informed in September 2022, there
was nothing of substance in it and nothing
that would be considered corrupt and it didn’t
meet the threshold to warrant any
investigation.
In September 2020 Aidan Kelly contacted
the Garda Ombudsman Commission (GSOC)
with a view to making a protected disclosure
but it was delayed by Covid and in the end
never happened.
In January 2024 Deputy Matt Carthy, whom
Kelly had asked to intervene, received a
response from Assistant Commissioner Cliona
Richardson claiming the complaints and
submissions had been fully investigated by
GSOC and the ACU and no prosecution had
been advised. But Kelly’s claims he has a
recording of a meeting with the ACU where
they state what they actually advise is no
investigation rather than no prosecution
which would be a matter for the Director of
Public Prosecutions.
Richardson also falsely claims to be liaising
with Kelly directly. Kelly claims there is a
reason why they have not provided any
disclosure which is that if the disclosure is
produced people who have been whitewashed
from the prosecution file, most notably Ann-
Marie Lardner, will have to account for
themselves and their actions. Prosecutions
taken by the DPP are in the public interest but
it is fair to ask in this case who’s interests this
prosecution serves best. Their last chance will
be at a hearing on 15 March.
Meanwhile, in what is clearly another
scandal perpetrated and orchestrated by
Garda management, it has deemed that
nobody in Garda management has done
anything wrong, should be held to account for
their actions, or be subjected to any
disciplinary investigation.
It is the first insight into post-Charlton
accountability in Bailieboro, and perhaps
beyond.
The recorded PULSE narrative for each of the 35
incidents recorded only four of them as crimes;
another six had their dates recorded incorrectly;
and seven were wrongly recorded as “no CCTV
available” or “doesn’t show incident”
CCTV of lleged trespss
