Masterclass in spin by Garda Ombudsman

 —  March - April 2012

t was one of the most extraordinary news sto-

ries of . On March st, Gardaí in north

Mayo arrested two anti-Shell campaigners

and seized a video camera. The Garda ser-

geant and colleagues then inadvertently recorded

themselves joking about threatening to rape and

deport one of the two women in their custody

before handing the camera back. The recording

was posted online, where it was listened to by more

than , people within days. It provided a

disturbing glimpse into the minds of some of the

very people to whom women are expected to report

rape. However, the saga took a more worrying twist

four months later.

In late July, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman

Commission (GSOC), which was conducting a ‘pub-

lic interest’ inquiry into the incident, announced

it had sent an “Interim Progress Report” to the

Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter. Shatter pub-

lished the report and, within hours, widespread

media coverage had implanted several key pieces

of false information in the public mind.

This three-page report should be compulsory

reading for students of PR and political spin. By

cleverly juxtaposing several half-truths and omit-

ting most of the crucial information, it created an

impression that all was not as it seemed with the

‘rape tape’. It serves Garda interests by undermin-

ing the women and creating an impression that

these Gardaí might have been victims of Shell to

Sea shenanigans.

Back in April, the ‘rape tape’ had provoked

public outrage. The oﬃcial Garda response was

contrite: the Garda Commissioner apologised

and reassured “victims of sexual crime” that they

should continue to report those crimes to Gardaí.

Behind the scenes, it was business as usual for

Garda ‘sources’. Personal details of the two arrested

women were leaked to the press (the women had

initially hoped to remain out of the public eye). A

reporter turned up at the family home of one of

them, Jerrieann Sullivan. She said her parents were

“extremely upset” by this. Meanwhile, Caoimhe

Kerins of Dublin Shell to Sea says she received tip-

oﬀs from two crime correspondents that Gardaí

were spreading a rumour that the women had

shouted “rape” during the arrest. Kerins assured

them it wasn’t true and the journalists didn’t print

it. The rationale of Gardaí seemed to be that this

rumour would mitigate the Garda behaviour in the

public mind: a disturbing echo of the old notion

that a woman is to blame for rape.

This smear ﬁnally found its way into print

 weeks later, when Jim Cusack published the

rumour as fact in the Sunday Independent on

June th. Sullivan complained to the Press

Ombudsman and in October he ruled that Cusack’s

article was “signiﬁcantly misleading”.

Some Gardaí and their allies had been seeking

revenge. But surely GSOC would act more fairly

and impartially? The signs were not promising. On

April th, the News of the World quoted a “source”

at GSOC, claiming Sullivan was refusing to hand

over the camera. She says she was “shocked at how

a supposedly independent public body could feed

journalists with information that undermined a

witness in its own investigation”.

In fact, there was a short delay in handing over

the camera, because of a dilemma facing Jerrieann

Sullivan and lecturers at NUI Maynooth, where she

was doing an MA degree. The camera belonged to

the university and contained a research interview

she had recorded three weeks before the “rape”

recording. The interview was subject to conﬁden-

tiality agreements with the participants: academic

guidelines meant the conﬁdentiality of the inter-

view had to be protected.

When GSOC demanded the camera, the uni-

versity academics explained their predicament

to GSOC and repeatedly oﬀered to have the older

ﬁle deleted in the presence of GSOC. However,

they say GSOC ignored all oﬀers and issued

threats of criminal prosecution against Sullivan

and her lecturers. A spokesman for GSOC told

Village he could not comment because, “This is

Masterclass in spin by

Garda Ombudsman

news

william hederman

The independent Garda

watchdog produced a

report about the Corrib

Garda ‘rape tape’ that

misinformed the public

and undermined the

women who brought

the recording to public

attention

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