'May Day' garda loses complaint appeal
A garda who was cleared of assaulting three protestors during an anti-globalisation protest on May Day, 2002 has lost his legal bid to stop the Garda Complaints Board from dealing with a complaint against him.
The Supreme Court today dismissed an appeal by garda Donal Corcoran against an earlier High Court refusal to stop the complaints board proceeding with a complaint that garda Corcoran had failed to wear any identification on his uniform during the May Day riots.
Garda Corcoran was cleared by a jury at the Circuit Criminal Court in November 2004 of assaulting two men and a woman during the "Reclaim the Streets" rally in Dublin city centre on May Day, 2002.
The Garda Complaints Board subsequently received a complaint against garda Corcoran which alleged that he had failed to wear identification on his uniform.
Garda Corcoran had claimed in the High Court that a press release issued by the Complaints Board, an RTE radio interview with the board's chairman Mr Gordon Holmes and a press conference held by the board showed that the Board had objective bias and that he would not get a
fair trial of the complaint against him.
Garda Corcoran did not allege any actual bias against him by the chairman or any individual members of the board.
Today Mr Justice Brian McCracken, presiding over a three-judge Supreme Court, said it was not sufficient that the person concerned apprehends that that there would be bias, it was also necessary that such apprehension would be held by a reasonable person in his position.
The judge said that the statements made in the press release and by the chairman were general statements made on a matter of public concern. He said he did not think that a reasonable person in garda Corcoran's shoes could consider that there was bias against him personally.
He said that garda Corcoran was not named in any way either directly or by implication in any of the statements and he dismissed the appeal.
