Sacked garda officer compares force to 'military junta'
A former senior garda officer sacked after being branded corrupt today compared the force to the military junta rulers brutally opposing democracy in Burma.
Ex-superintendent Kevin Lennon claimed former colleagues lied and withheld information about him in the courts in a concerted attempt to deny him justice.
He insisted Garda chiefs were operating a “junta system” that held him out as a scapegoat for revelations about corruption and wrongdoing among the ranks since the 1990s.
“I was subjected to 48 false allegations of a most serious nature, taken down by the Garda Siochana, and not investigated, improperly investigated,” he told the Morris Tribunal.
“[Allegations were] put in the public domain and written in the [news]papers denigrating my family … that have now been withdrawn.”
Mr Lennon, who was sacked by order of the Cabinet three years ago after the tribunal found him to be corrupt, said elements within the force had conspired against him.
“Members of the Garda Siochana went up the Court of Appeal and withheld evidence and allowed facts to go before the honourable court, that they knew in their heart and soul was untrue and had no reality,” he said.
“They misrepresented the truth to that court and withheld factual evidence from that court which they hold within their possession.”
He said he had written to Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy with a 26-page report “outlining how they done me in” but had not received any response.
He also contacted the Attorney General and Commission for Law Reform, the tribunal heard.
Mr Lennon was the district superintendent, based in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, during an alleged campaign of intimidation against prominent Raphoe publican Frank McBrearty Snr in the late 1990s.
The former garda told the tribunal he warned his superior, Chief Superintendent Denis Fitzpatrick, not to circulate a document at the time claiming Mr McBrearty was financing a campaign to discredit the force.
“It’ll be discovered and then we’ll be in the shithouse,” he said he told Chief Supt Fitzpatrick.
He said he initially refused to issue the document among rank and file but was later ordered to by his boss.
Tribunal barrister Paul McDermott SC noted that the document was marked “for Garda use only” and “confidential”.
Mr Lennon replied: “Nothing is confidential in the Guards.”
