THE DISCLOSURES TRIBUNAL is hearing allegations from a former garda that he was targeted and discredited within the force after he raised concerns about the Baiba Saulite case.
Ms Saulite, a mother-of-two originally from Latvia, died after being shot three times by a lone gunman outside her home in Swords, Co Dublin, on 19 November 2006.
The DPP later decided that nobody would be charged in relation to the murder.
The tribunal today heard an outline of a complaint made by retired Sergeant William Hughes, who was assigned to the community policing unit in Swords Garda Station at the time of the events being examined.
The tribunal heard that Hughes had carried out “extensive investigations between 2004 and 2006″ into the abduction of Ms Saulite’s children from the State. The children were located and Ms Saulite travelled to Lebanon to collect them and bring them back to Ireland.
A man, who is being referred to during the tribunal as Mr A, later plead guilty to the abduction of the children.
Ahead of sentencing, Ms Saulite met with Hughes in the presence of Garda Declan Nyhan at Swords Garda Station on 14 November 2006 to prepare a victim impact statement ahead of his sentencing.
She handed Hughes a handwritten twelve-page draft of a victim impact report for the sentencing hearing, the tribunal heard.
The tribunal was told that this document outlined a history of abuse perpetrated against Ms Saulite and included near the end of the draft that she was “very scared for my life”.
Speaking at the Tribunal this afternoon about this interaction with Ms Saulite, Hughes said that she was not making formal complaint about Mr. A, who was in jail at the time.
He said that some elements to the draft victim impact statement were not suitable and that she was to return to gardaí to complete it on another occasion.
However, Ms Saulite was murdered five days later with Hughes saying today that he was “shocked and upset” when he was told she had been killed.
“I was extremely shocked that things got to this stage and I felt things had gone terribly wrong with the entire matter, it shouldn’t have happened. When it happened and after I was thinking was there a way we could have prevented this,” he told the tribunal.
‘Systems failure’
In his interview with tribunal investigators Hughes stated that:
I began making allegations about a ‘systems failure’, in respect of all investigations related to the murder, including the child abduction case, in which I was involved.
He added: “What I was saying was that numerous related crimes, including the child abduction case and threats to Baiba Saulite and her Solicitor John Hennessy which occurred in 2006 were not properly correlated and coordinated.”
He said he later told an investigation into these allegations that there was “a systemic failure” to coordinate the investigations and that this “ultimately permitted a critical chain of events to transpire before the death of Baiba Saulite”.
Hughes claimed that “the responsibility for the failure rests with senior management” and that he further claims that he was “subjected to a horrendous cycle of intimidation, bullying and harassment” by Garda management on foot of the issues he raised.
Disciplinary proceedings
In 2007, a Garda investigation into an alleged breach of discipline by Hughes sought to determine if Hughes was “in possession of documentation or information” that meant he “ought to have known” about “the existence of a real and immediate risk to the life of Baiba Saulite”.
Two years later, the investigation found that “there was no breach of discipline” by Hughes as the investigation did not establish that he was aware of such a risk to the life of Ms Saulite.
The tribunal is seeking to establish if Assistant Commissioner Al McHugh or Chief Superintendent Michael Feehan sought to “to target or discredit” Hughes by initiating the disciplinary proceedings because Hughes had made a protected disclosure.
It is denied by the gardaí that is the case.
In a statement to the tribunal, McHugh said there was no basis in fact for Hughes’s allegations about the institution of the disciplinary proceedings:
There was absolutely no question that I was preferring a breach of discipline against Sergeant Hughes in that notice nor was a breach of discipline ever preferred against Sergeant Hughes. When I discontinued the proceedings on receipt of the investigation file he was completely exonerated in the matter with absolutely no blemish on his character or history.
The tribunal will also examine whether these proceedings were “unreasonably” protracted.
Hughes was also certified sick from work in late 2006 and early 2007 due to “work related stress” and was again “sick and unfit for duty” for an extended between May 2007 and December 2009.
The tribunal will look at whether garda management failed to investigate his work-related stress and whether treating his absence as an “ordinary illness” rather than “an injury on duty” was “so that his pay was subject to severe reduction”.
It will also consider whether Hughes was discredited by senior gardaí for a failure to investigate a report published in the Irish Daily Star by crime journalist Michael O’Toole in November 2008.
The article was titled “Cop never looked at tragic Baiba’s warning” and referenced “garda sources”.
Hughes complained about the article and it was investigated by a senior garda who found it could not be progressed because of “the refusal of O’Toole to disclose his source”.
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