The High Court has dismissed a garda’s claim that his employers bullied and scapegoated him after the 2006 murder of a woman he had assisted during a child abduction investigation.
Mr Justice Cross, in a judgment delivered on 26 July 2012, found no evidence that senior gardaí had known of specific threats to Baiba Saulite before she was killed, or that they orchestrated disciplinary proceedings to protect senior officers. He concluded that the plaintiff’s belief in a cover-up was mistaken, but sincere.
The plaintiff, Declan Nyhan, had worked on the investigation into the abduction of Ms Saulite’s children. After her murder, he believed he and Sergeant Hughes were being blamed for failing to act on threats that senior officers already knew about. A disciplinary investigation examined whether he had information about a real and immediate risk to Ms Saulite and had failed to take steps to avoid it. That inquiry concluded in July 2008 that there was no evidence he knew, or ought to have known, of such a risk.
The court accepted evidence that the inquiry was not a charge against Mr Nyhan and found it was not part of a scapegoating campaign. It also found that the Garda authorities had no information of specific threats to Ms Saulite before her death. The only possible warning identified by the court was in an unread draft victim impact statement, which it said was not a specific threat and did not make Mr Nyhan or Sergeant Hughes blameworthy for failing to read it.
Mr Nyhan also complained that his employers failed to address his safety concerns, delayed investigating a suspicious call to his mother’s home, and did not respond appropriately to his mental health needs. The judge found that the delay in tracing the call was unacceptable, but did not amount to a breach of duty. He said the defendants repeatedly tried to reassure Mr Nyhan that there was no threat to him, and their responses did not constitute bullying, negligence or breach of duty.
The judgment found that Mr Nyhan had suffered depression, anxiety and a probable recurrence of post-traumatic stress symptoms, which eased before he returned to work in November 2009 and later relapsed. The court said the defendants were not unreasonable in relying on medical opinions that he was fit to work. It did not decide whether he was entitled to pay after his sick leave began; the parties agreed that issue was outside the scope of this action.
The court dismissed the claim. It did not determine Mr Nyhan’s future in An Garda Síochána.