By Ciaran Vale
The High Court has rejected an application by Garda Tina Fowley seeking to have the investigation of a burglary at her Letterkenny home transferred away from Gardaí connected with the Donegal Division.
Fowley’s home was burgled on January 10, 2005. Items taken included two clocks, a DVD player, discs, a torch, a PlayStation 2 game, cash and tapes which she said were relevant to the Morris Tribunal.
She subsequently asked Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy to arrange for officers outside the Donegal Division to investigate. Through her solicitors, she argued that a conflict existed because she had given evidence to the Morris Tribunal concerning alleged misconduct by certain senior Donegal Gardaí.
The Commissioner’s office declined the request, saying the burglary was being investigated by Letterkenny Gardaí and expressing confidence in the officers involved.
Mr Justice Clarke held that a crime victim may, in an exceptional case, ask the courts to intervene where an investigation is being handled capriciously. But he stressed that Garda management must be given a very wide discretion over how individual investigations are conducted, including operational matters and the allocation of personnel.
The judge also rejected Fowley’s argument that the ordinary legal test for objective bias should apply to investigating Gardaí. Police officers are investigators rather than adjudicators, he said, and prior knowledge or previous dealings do not automatically prevent an officer taking part in an inquiry.
The court noted that Fowley’s original complaint focused mainly on senior Gardaí who had served in Donegal during the period examined by the Morris Tribunal. Evidence before the court showed that almost all senior personnel had changed by 2005.
Fowley later raised concerns about individual members of the burglary investigation team, but Clarke J questioned why those matters had not been raised initially when she already knew who the investigators were.
The court found no evidence that the burglary inquiry itself had been improperly conducted and held that the exceptionally high threshold for judicial intervention had not been met. Her application was dismissed.