Ex-garda fined for leaking report
Senior officer wanted to clear name in Lyons case
Thursday July 30 2009
A FORMER senior garda has been fined €5,000 for leaking a confidential government report, but has escaped a custodial sentence.
Now-retired Detective Sergeant Robert McNulty (50) had been "obsessed" with restoring his reputation since coming under a 2006 public inquiry into the Dean Lyons' case, a court heard yesterday.
Counsel for McNulty said his client spoke of being "ridiculed" by the media and "jeered at by his own peers".
He said he disclosed the draft report, which cleared gardai of misconduct surrounding Mr Lyons's false murder confessions, in a "self-serving" bid to "vindicate his own good name".
McNulty, of The Close, Boden Park, Rathfarnham, pleaded guilty to disclosing the draft report's contents without consent on a date between July 10 and August 10, 2006.
Judge Desmond Hogan noted the information released by McNulty related to himself and that he has since resigned.
He imposed a 12-month suspended sentence and a €5,000 fine, with three months to pay.
Detective Superintendent John McMahon said the Government set up the Dean Lyons Commission of Investigation under George Birmingham (now Mr Justice Birmingham) to investigate Mr Lyons's false confessions to two murders in the Grangegorman area in 1997.
The murders of Mary Callanan and Sylvia Shields, who were stabbed to death in their sheltered accommodation in Grangegorman, Dublin, caused widespread revulsion across the country.
Drug addict Dean Lyons, who has since died, confessed to those murders but it was later accepted by the gardai and an independent inquiry that he could not have committed the murders. Another man subsequently admitted to the killings.
Det Supt McMahon said McNulty and other colleagues had already been vindicated of misconduct in an internal inquiry and subsequent review.
He said Mr Birmingham sent the first draft of the commission's report to 15 people, including McNulty, between July 10 and 11, 2006, before revising it, issuing a second draft and sending the final draft to the justice minister on July 28, 2006.
Confidential
Det Supt McMahon told the court that the 'Evening Herald' published articles on August 10 and 11, 2006, containing direct quotes from the first five pages of the report's initial draft.
Gardai deduced that the quoted material came from the report's first draft because the same content had been amended in subsequent drafts.
The retired garda confirmed he received the confidential document in a sealed envelope, but denied he'd contacted 'Evening Herald' reporter Mick McCaffrey or other journalists when he spoke with colleagues investigating the leak.
Det Supt McMahon said gardai arrested McNulty and Mr McCaffrey when they found evidence of calls between the two men on the reporter's phone.
He said gardai matched the reporter's fingerprints to three marks found on McNulty's copy of the draft report.
The former garda was charged with disclosing the report on October 15, 2007, and suspended from the force until he retired in July 2009.
Retired Det Supt PJ Browne described McNulty, his friend and colleague of 20 years, as a "very commendable, very reliable" member of the force who came under enormous pressure from the Dean Lyons' investigations.
Det Supt Browne said: "My only belief is that he did it to clear his name", when asked his opinion on McNulty's motive for the leak.
Counsel for McNulty said that the father of three had lost his reputation, his job, his health and the respect of his colleagues and the public.
He submitted that although his client had "jumped the gun" with leaking the report, the disclosure didn't derail the commission or affect its work.
- Aoife Nic Ardghail and Fiona Ferguson
