Tag Archives: Garda Inspectorate report

report90361368

Interim Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan (centre), with, from left, Cyril Dunne, Chief Administrative Officer An Garda Siochana, and Acting Commissioner Dublin Metropolitan Region John Twomy at the Dublin Metropolitan Region Area Office, Harcourt Square, Dublin yesterday.

Bodger has just finished the door stopping Garda Inspectorate report on the investigation of crime in Ireland.

Herewith Bodger’s ‘At A Glance’ guide:

More than 1,000 garda staff and members were interviewed

Around 1,500 PULSE crime and incident records were examined.

Some 158 calls for service, made by members of the public, were randomly selected. All information on the 158 calls was requested and the full process of crime investigation over 12 months, from reporting, to recording, to investigation, to prosecution was tracked.

44 of the 158 calls reviewed were not recorded on PULSE.

Based on a sampling of 500 PULSE crime records, the Inspectorate found 30%
to be incorrectly classified and insufficient detail in 16% of cases to determine
if the classification was correct;

Of the 158 Volume Case Reviews, 114 were recorded on PULSE, of which 90
were designated as a crime;

• The Inspectorate disagreed with 32% of the classifications shown on PULSE.
There was insufficient detail to make a determination in 6% of cases;

• Assaults had lower rates of correct classification (38%);

Approximately 420,000 Review/Clarifications issued to members by GISC staff
seeking further information, or in some cases clarifying crime classification,
are outstanding;

8.5% of all crimes recorded on PULSE were reclassified over seventeen month
period from January 2011 to May 2012;

• Inspectorate selected eight crime categories and examined 2,372 crimes
reclassified between January 2011 and May 2012 in the seven divisions visited;
• Six of the eight categories significantly moved to a lesser crime type;
• In 83% of cases, reclassification resulted in a crime moving to a less serious
offence;
• The greatest percentage movement to a lesser crime took place in the categories
of burglary, robbery and assault harm;

In focus groups with members, it was highlighted that crimes are sometimes
reclassified incorrectly or changed to a non-crime category;
• PULSE records were viewed by the Inspectorate in which gardaí had recorded
on PULSE that they had reclassified a crime as a result of directions from a
supervisor;

The Inspectorate directly accessed the PULSE system and sampled 393
reclassified incidents from live PULSE incident records. A database was created
with detailed information from each record:

• Inspectorate found 71% of crimes incorrectly reclassified with insufficient
information to make a determination in 11% of the cases;
• No recorded rationale to explain the reclassification in many cases;
• In the majority of cases the initial classification was correct;

There are approximately 700 untrained detectives;

Some detectives investigated 100 crimes a year and some less than ten crimes
per year;

In 43% of the cases that were investigated by the gardaí, there were no updates
on PULSE in the twelve months following the creation of the record;

Since 2005, approximately 5,000 gardaí have joined the Garda Síochána and a
large majority of those gardaí have not received any or appropriate interview
techniques training;

Only 45% of fingerprints were taken in 2012/13 for those detained in garda
stations who should have had fingerprints taken;

• In 2013, of all persons who should have had fingerprints taken, 66% were not
taken

The Inspectorate requested detection data from the Garda Síochána in the form of a PULSE search of key volume crime areas in a three month period in 2012 of the seven districts visited:

• Of 2,195 crimes reported, 946 were recorded on PULSE as detected, resulting
in a detection rate of 43%; only 390 of the total detections had a charge or a
summons attached to the PULSE incident. On examination, the Inspectorate’s
view is the correct detection rate is 26%

• Inspectorate examined 318 of the 556 PULSE incidents where there was no
charge or summons recorded.

RUN!

Garda Inspectorate Report

(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland)

Screen Shot 2014-11-11 at 01.23.16

John Mooney, of The Sunday Times, on last night’s Prime Time

The Garda Inspectorate Report is set to be published today.

It looked at allegations made by whistleblowers, former Garda John Wilson and Sgt Maurice McCabe, that many serious crimes were not fully investigated.

Last night, on Prime Time, journalist Rita O’Reilly reported that the report is expected to reveal that true crime figures were “underreported, underrecorded and underplayed”.

Last Sunday, John Mooney, security correspondent at The Sunday Times, reported:

The practice of “massaging” crime statistics is said to be widespread in some garda divisions. It means that the true scale of crimes such as burglary, theft and criminal damage is downplayed in some divisions, which could have a bearing on officers’ chances of promotion.

The inspectorate, which is led by Bob Olson, a Canadian police consultant, examined more than 150 incidents over three years and found that in some cases gardai did not even record crimes on Pulse, the force’s computerised database.

In other cases it found evidence to suggest that gardai did not respond to reports about certain types of crime, including incidents of domestic violence.

It is understood the Garda Inspectorate is considering investigating the force’s response to domestic violence.

Meanwhile…

Following on from Sgt Maurice McCabe’s fresh allegations in September – that certain gardaí were continuing to cancel penalty points, despite the introduction of new regulations three months previous, in June – last night Katie Hannon, of RTÉ’s Prime Time, reported that a report into these fresh allegations has found them to be true.

This new report was carried out by the Garda Professional Standards Unit.

Eighteen months have passed since Assistant Commissioner John O’Mahony’s May 2013 internal Garda report into the penalty point allegations concluded there was no widespread quashing of penalty points.

Watch Prime Time in full here

Previously: Lest We Forget

The Thin Blue Timeline [Updated]

90333686summonses

[Robert Olson of the Garda Inspectorate and, above,  a screengrab from yesterday’s report]

When a motorist breaks the law and a Fixed Charge Notice (FCN) is issued, the offender has 28 days to pay the fine.

Failure to do so results in a 50% increase in the fine with another 28 days to pay it. If, after 56 days the offender still hasn’t paid, a summons to attend court is issued to the offender by a member of the Gardaí.

If the summons isn’t served, no fine is paid and no penalty points are incurred.

Yesterday’s Garda Inspectorate report looked at the issue of summonses not being served.

It found:

“In reviewing the level of non-payment of FCNs for 2011 and 2012, the C&AG found that approximately 238,000 fines were unpaid. Of these an estimated 56,000 FCNs were cancelled petition requests, company summonses and statute barred offences. Of the remaining unpaid FCNs, approximately 178,500 summonses were issued in 2011 and 2012. Of these summonses, 85,000 (48%) were served and 93,500 (52%) went unserved.

“As outlined in Table 2.2 [above], the Inspectorate, using C&AG figures, conservatively estimates the potential Exchequer revenue loss from the non-payment of the FCNs resulting in unserved summonses to be a minimum of €7.4 million.”

Following on from this, the Garda Inspectorate recommended:

“A review of the summons serving process be undertaken by the Garda Síochána to ascertain the reasons for the significant level of unserved summonses and to make recommendations to provide a more effective summons serving process.”

While the penalty point controversy has overshadowed the issue of summonses not being served, incidences in relation to this matter were investigated and highlighted by former Irish independent journalist Gemma O’Doherty, over the last year.

May 9, 2013: Ms O’Doherty, in the Irish Independent, reported that summonses for three different motoring offences were not served on Fianna Fáil’s Robert Tory, by gardaí. The three summonses related to alleged speeding in August 2011 and March 2012 and for parking on a footpath in June 2011.

May 10, 2013: Fianna Fail TD Robert Troy issued a statement in relation to the summonses that weren’t served, saying: “The Minister for Justice is currently awaiting a report from the Garda Commissioner into issues concerning the application of penalty points. I welcome this process and look forward to the publication of the report. I currently have six points on my licence and if the gardaí believe that there any further outstanding cases then I will of course co-operate fully in this regard.”

October 17, 2013: Phoenix magazine reported that the State Solicitor for Westmeath Peter Jones avoided incurring 8 penalty points to his driver’s licence because points were either terminated, court summonses were not served or, on one occasion, a case was struck out.
The points related to four separate times Mr Jones was allegedly caught speeding between 2011 and 2012. The magazine reported that Gemma O’Doherty was planning to write an article about Mr Jones and the non-serving of summonses and had put questions to Mr Jones in May 2013, at the time she was sacked.

January 23, 2014: At a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, Waterford Fine Gael TD John Deasy asked Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan: “Has the Commissioner come across any evidence of deliberate non-serving of summonses by gardaí?” Mr Callinan replied: “No”.
Mr Deasy also asked Commissioner Callinan: “Has the Commissioner taken disciplinary action against any garda with regard to the non-serving of summonses? Again, Mr Callinan replied: “No.”
Mr Deasy then asked the Commissioner: “Has the Commissioner ever detected multiple non-serving of summonses by a particular garda?”. Mr Callinan replied: “To be fair, no. It is a volume issue. It is a difficult area for us and we accept it is a difficult area for us but we are working to try to reduce the level.”

Read the Garda Inspectorate report in full here.

(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)

Inspectorate

From the Garda Inspectorate report:

Page 9

“There was a lack of management oversight in not implementing required monitoring mechanisms at the operational level, providing training for cancelling authorities and clear policy guidelines for its use. These problems were mentioned by several senior garda officers who lamented, “… if everyone had just followed the manual …we wouldn’t be dealing with this …”. The Inspectorate was told by senior garda staff, that but for the public scrutiny, the extent of the deficiencies within the fixed charge processing system would not have been detected”.

Page 21

“By way of example, the Inspectorate notes from the Assistant Commissioner and PSU [Garda Professional Standards Unit] reports and from focus group meetings that requests for cancellation of FCNs are accepted over the phone. This process is in breach of current policy, where all FCN cancellation requests must be in writing. However, the Inspectorate accepts that in some cases FCN cancellation requests are undertaken in good faith.”

Page 26

“Road traffic offenders who receive a FCN and who do not pay it are served with a summons to attend a local district court. Focus group and stakeholder meetings suggested that on conviction offenders were avoiding penalty points by intentionally not producing their driving licence in court. The court summons advises the offender to bring their driving licence and a copy of their licence to court. Where offenders do not bring their driving licence to court, there is no system to ensure penalty points are endorsed on the driving licence. This is a very serious issue. In a recent Parliamentary Question, the Minister for Justice and Equality published figures indicating production rates of driving licences in court for convicted offenders. In the period March 2012 to August 2013 a total of 16,493 offenders were convicted of penalty point offences across all district courts of which only 6,653 (40%) had their driving licence number recorded. The individual rates of recording of driving licence details across all district courts varied from a rate of 15% at Drogheda/Dundalk District Court to 60% recorded in the DMR region. A total of 9,840 (60%) convicted offenders avoided penalty points on their licence during this 18 month period and this deficiency in the system needs to be addressed.”

Page 32

“Currently there is no statutory provision that enables the use of discretion by the Garda Síochána in cancelling FCNs.”

Page 34

“As part of its fieldwork, the Inspectorate examined the FCN cancellation files from the nine districts inspected for August 2012 and January 2013, which resulted in the examination of 103 files from nine districts. The Inspectorate notes that in only one of the nine districts examined, was the cancellation policy implemented as required by the manual.”

Page 36

A total of fifty-five inspectors and superintendents were identified as breaching policy in cancelling fixed charge notices of varying degrees of seriousness. As a result of these breaches of policy, most were referred to their divisional officers for a “reminder” to comply with policy and three referred to Garda Internal Affairs for investigation.”