THE OFFICERS NABBED FOR CRIMINALITY
THERE have been a number of cases of criminality involving members of the Garda force.
Last year, a former garda was jailed for three years for a string of offences including dealing cocaine, attempting to frame someone for car theft and insurance fraud. Stephen Cooper, then 29 and of The Green, Kingswood Heights, Tallaght, was a member of the force when the offences took place in 2010.
In 2011, another former garda was handed down a prison term for corruption offences. John Joe Synnott, then 55, of Camblin, New Ross, Co. Wexford, was handed a three-year sentence, with the final two suspended.
Synnott was found guilty of three counts of fraud relating to an alleged car crash at Newtown Road, Wexford, in September 2007. Judge Alice Doyle said at sentencing: ‘He breached everything the gardaí stood for... He committed these crimes with his uniform on.’
And in 2013, a fired garda who passed on confidential information and illegally held a single barrel shotgun in his home was ordered to carry out community service in lieu of jail time.
Daniel Tarrant, then 51, personally and indirectly accessed confidential data on the Garda PULSE system to give to retail security firms who were clients of his partner. Tarrant, of Doon, Kiskeam, Mallow, Co. Cork, pleaded guilty to three charges of disclosing personal data without the prior authority of the Data Controller between December 2008 and July 2009.
He also pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a single-barrel shotgun on October 9, 2009, in Ashbourne, Co. Meath.