A security guard from popular Dublin gay venue, Panti Bar, says an off-duty Garda superintendent called him a “black bastard” in the midst of an alleged altercation two years ago.
Arresting Garda, Eoghan Naughton claims that the superintendent threatened that he would “sue” him and that the officer would “lose” his “job” due to the arrest.
Panti Bar security guard.
Marcos Peter Inacio claims that Superintendent Gavin O’Reilly, who was a customer at nearby Pennylane cafe and bar on the night in question said, “Get your hands off me you black bastard”, after Inacio says he asked him to move away from the area after seeing him involved in a heated verbal dispute with the then manager of Pennylane, Emma Parks.
Counsel for O’Reilly, Garnet Orange SC questioned why the issue of the racial remarks were not present in a statement made to GSOC regarding the alleged incident, to which Inacio replied that he had mentioned it but it was not recorded for an unknown reason.
O said that he has given the same account of the alleged incident in all his statements, where the remarks were recorded in a Garda statement.
“I did suffer racism on that day,” he said.
The court heard that Inacio is in Ireland on a working visa and that he attended college here.
Speaking of the 26th of August 2023, Inacio said, “It was not a very busy night” and that he had been outside the door of Panti Bar.
He said he became aware of the incident when he “saw this man shouting and pointing in Emma’s face,” he said that the pair were “shouting” and that he “couldn’t get every single word”.
He said that he had told O’Reilly to “go away” and that he was “protecting Emma”.
Mr. Orange put it to him that he is 6 ‘3’’ while O’Reilly is “a slight gentleman” who is about 5 ‘5’ in height.
He rejected the idea that he had “imposed” himself on O’Reilly saying, “I was doing my job which was protecting Emma.”
Asked why a second security guard who was on the scene didn’t intervene at first he said, “Ozmar’s English is really bad, trust me,” before stating that it was unlikely that this man would have understood the nature of the exchange between Parks and O’Reilly.
“Are you really suggesting he didn’t intervene because he doesn’t speak English?” Mr. Orange said.
Mr. Orange asked Inacio “Where did you get the authority to touch my client,” to which he replied that he had put his hand on O’Reilly “to protect a woman”, to which Mr. Orange retorted that he has “no right in law that you were aware of,”.
Prosecuting counsel John Griffin told the court that a security guard “is entitled to apply force”.
Mr. Orange put it to the witness that he was “never” racially abused, and that Parks had tried to “provoke” his client into a “reaction” by recording him.
Inacio insisted that he had been racially abused by O’Reilly, and that he had held him “to make sure that he didn’t do anything else” during the exchange with Parks.
Accused of keeping O’Reilly at the scene “against his will”, he said that O’Reilly was kept there to wait until Gardaí arrived.
Orange argued that Parks was “the person who arrived on the scene looking for trouble.”
Inacio said that in dealing with physical intervention, “I would go with sense and life experience”, adding, “I don’t know the law deeply”.
During the course of the hearing the defence applied to have the two charges against O’Reilly dismissed, an application which the court rejected.
An application was also made by the prosecution for the accused to sit in the dock for the duration of the hearing, which was also refused.
Judge Hughes also expressed that the court was “surprised” that the second security guard on the scene that night had not come to court today, despite having been served with a witness summons, although he was present yesterday.
Arresting Garda Eoghan Naughton.
Garda Eoghan Naughton, who was station at Store Street at the time of the alleged incident, entered the witness stand to gove evidence of the arrest of superintendent O’Reilly.
He said that Emma Parks had said that her “phone was slapped out of her hand” and that a male was “being abusive towards here “.
“Said one of the male bouncers was called a black cunt and [told] that he would get deported,” he said.
Garda Naughton said that O’Reilly “refused” to show his Garda ID when requested to produce it after claiming to be a superintendent.
He said O’Reilly was “threatening” towards us himself and his assisting Garda Graham Johnson, and that he “kept roaring and shouting” at them.
“He was getting in our face, shouting and roaring in our face,” he said, adding that, “There was a bit of a smell of alcohol off him.”
He “kept saying he was Superintendent Gavin O’Reilly”, and that he would “sue” Naughton for “€100,000” and that he would contact the Assistant Garda Commissioner, and that Naughton would “lose” his job.
When a Sergeant Godfrey came on the scene, Naughton said he was told O’Reilly would be “released pending further investigation” and that he accepted this as “he’s one of my supervisors” [Godfrey].
Mr. Orange questioned Garda Naughton as to whether his client was “free to go” or whether he had been detained on the scene by security, to which he said, “I can’t answer that”.
Asked under which provision of Section 24 of the Public Order Act had affected his arrest of O’Reilly, Naughton said,“I can’t recall”.
Naughton reported that O’Reilly was “shouting and roaring and getting in our face” and that he had said he would “urinate” in the back of the patrol car.
When Orange insisted that Garda Naughton would have become aware that O’Reilly was indeed a Superintendent at the scene, he responded,“I didn’t know who he was”.
Orange argued that trainee Garda, Manus Murphy, who was on the scene at the time had recognised O’Reilly after seeing him during Garda participation at a gay pride parade on the 24th of June that year, and that he had mentioned this to Naughton, however the Garda said that he could not recall this.
Mr. Orange argued that Naughton had “tried to embarrass” his client and that he was “motivated by malice”, which the witness rejected.
Judge John Hughes asked Garda Naughton if he thought Superintendent O’Reilly would become “violent”, to which he responded that he didn’t.
“He was pointing his finger at me and threatening that I would lose my job,” he said, and that O’Reilly had got out of the patrol car, where he was sitting beside trainee Garda Murphy, and was “shouting and roaring at me. ”
Asked by Mr. Griffin what would cause a Garda to arrest someone “in general”, Naughton replied this would happen if the person was abusive to Garda officers.
When Mr. Griffin asked if a person’s occupation is relevant to whether a person is arrested, Naughton said, “We deal with them in the exact same way.”
The trial continues tomorrow at 11am.