Gardaí beat me in back of car, witness tells court
A former British soldier said in court today that gardaí beat him up and threatened his life in the back of a car.
Martin Graham was giving evidence in Ian Bailey's action for damages against the State and Garda authorities for alleged wrongful arrest on suspicion of killing French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier in 1996.
Mr Graham told the High Court that the attack happened after he had been given cannabis, cash and a promise of a large reward if he could get a statement implicating Ian Bailey in the Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder.
Martin Graham's claimed in court that Detectives Jim Fitzgerald and Liam Leahy gave him cannabis and about IR£500 to get close to Mr Bailey and try to secure a confession about the Sophie Toscan du Plantier killing.
But the 53-year-old said that he later decided to come clean and told Ian Bailey he was being "stitched".
Mr Graham said that around early June he met with detectives Leahy and Fitzgerald, who arrived with two other policemen who bundled him in the back of a car, drove him around the countryside and repeatedly asked him: 'Where are the tapes?'. This related to a failed tape a newspaper reporter had tried to make, Mr Graham said.
Fighting back tears, the ex-British soldier said he thought he was going to be murdered because he had caught the gardaí being corrupt and they could lose their livelihoods, their pensions and their reputations.
He said gardaí also threatened that provos would take his life. He said that after the incident, he hid for two weeks and then managed to leave the country.
