Ex garda press officer no longer believes Maurice McCabe was motivated by revenge, tribunal told

Former garda press officer Supt David Taylor says he no longer believes that whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe was motivated by revenge in raising issues about garda conduct in the Cavan Monaghan district and abuses of the penalty points system.

Ex garda press officer no longer believes Maurice McCabe was motivated by revenge, tribunal told

By Gerard Cunningham

Former garda press officer Supt David Taylor says he no longer believes that whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe was motivated by revenge in raising issues about garda conduct in the Cavan Monaghan district and abuses of the penalty points system.

The Charleton tribunal is examining allegations by Supt Taylor that former garda commissioner Martin Callinan directed him to brief the media negatively on Sgt McCabe. Mr Callinan denies these allegations.

Supt Taylor said that at the time he was garda press officer, he believed the substance of the briefing he was instructed to give to journalists. This was that Sgt McCabe wanted revenge because he had been investigated over sexual abuse allegations.

In 2007 the DPP directed no prosecution following an investigation into a historic allegation of abuse by Miss D, saying there was no evidence a crime ha been committed.

Questioned by Michael McDowell SC, who represents Sgt McCabe, Supt Taylor said he did not believe he was doing wrong at the time, and that the information he was giving was factual.

Supt Taylor said that later, after he was suspended from An Garda Síochána, "when I had removed myself from the hothouse of Garda culture I realised what I had done was wrong."

"It shouldn't have been done whether it was true or not," Supt Taylor said.

"Are you still of the view he was motivated by revenge?" Mr McDowell asked.

"No, I now know it wasn't true," Supt Taylor said.

Supt Taylor said that negative briefings were not put in writing, but "would be taken as an opportunity, to slip it into a conversation" as part of off-the-record briefings.

Asked what he expected the result of the briefings to be, Supt Taylor said "I expected what the garda management expected, that there'd be a critical eye taken at the allegations that Sgt McCabe was making”.

Supt Taylor said that the 2006 Miss D investigation was well known in Garda HQ, and was spoken of "almost like a water cooler conversation”.

Supt Taylor said that journalists didn't react when he briefed them negatively. "Journalists are hard-nosed, it takes a lot to shock them,” he said.

Supt Taylor said that two journalists perceived as sympathetic to Sgt McCabe, the Irish Examiner's Michael Clifford and RTÉ's Katie Hannon, were not given negative briefings.

"We had no engagement with Mick Clifford when I was at the press office," Supt Taylor said.

"With Ms Hannon we had some engagement because she would seek confirmation on some questions she sent in relation to programmes, we would keep it very professional."

Earlier, tribunal barrister Diarmaid McGuinness SC asked Supt Taylor why his protected disclosure did not mention that he had overheard Commissioner Callinan call Sgt McCabe a "kiddie fiddler" after a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing in 2013.

Supt Taylor said that he "subsequently fleshed out" all the knowledge he had in statements to the tribunal.

Supt Taylor said that Sgt McCabe got it wrong in saying that Supt Taylor said he sent text messages to journalists. Supt Taylor said that when he was sent a chapter of a book by journalist Michael Clifford describing a meeting between Sgt McCabe and Supt Taylor to check for factual accuracy, he "didn't proof read it in the sense of go through it line by line”.

"I gave it a perusal, a look through it," Supt Taylor said.

Supt Taylor denied he had attempted to create a media narrative that he was being unfairly targeted, and said he made his protected disclosure in September 2016 "because I wanted to do the right thing”.

Supt Taylor said he confirmed the Miss D investigation allegations to journalists Debbie McCann and Eavan Murray, but the journalists already knew the facts from other sources. Supt Taylor said that while he knew Miss D's surname, he had not given it to journalists.

Ms McCann and Ms Murray both claim journalistic privilege in statements to the tribunal. Supt Taylor said he could not recall the content of phone calls and texts to these two journalists and to Paul Williams in February 2014.

He said that it was a busy month with the alleged GSOC bugging story, and there were many queries in relation to that story at the time.

Also at the tribunal, the legal team for Irish Examiner journalist Juno McEnroe told the tribunal that the reporter was asserting journalistic privilege. On Monday, the tribunal was told that Mr McEnroe said he had no knowledge or information about negative briefings on Sgt McCabe.

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