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Press briefing - Issued by Dublin Shell to Sea - Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
Last Thursday, 31st March 2011, several Gardai, including a Sergeant, accidentally recorded themselves while travelling in a squad car in north Mayo. They had just arrested two female protesters at a Shell compound at Aughoose, had seized their camera and had let the camera continue recording in the car. The women were travelling in two other Garda cars in the same convoy.
After the women were released without charge, and the camera returned to them, the women discovered the recording of the Garda conversation. This included the Gardaí talking about threatening to rape one of the women in their custody. They also talk about whether they should bother adhering to safety procedures for removing protesters from heights: the Sergeant advocates ignoring the rules learned in Garda training.
Dublin Shell to Sea spokesperson Caoimhe Kerrins said: “This is shocking and extremely serious. It is very frightening for those of us involved in the campaign. Gardai are the people that women are supposed to trust when they need to report a rape. Gardai are supposed to be responsible for bringing rapists to justice.”
The recording and the transcripts have been made available by the Rossport Solidarity Camp and Dublin Shell to Sea.
Contact Caoimhe Kerins (Tel: 085 8328130) for information about the recordings and about the incident and also for contacts for other organisations which are issuing statements about the incident.
Below are:
* Links to several versions of the recording, video and audio.
* A transcript of a key part of the recording.
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VIDEO:
Full length video file on Vimeo, with text introduction and some subtitles:
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Further transcripts are available at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/
[TRANSCRIPT OF SEGMENT FROM 12:10 – 13:10]
Sergeant: Who is them two lassies, do you know the two of them?
Garda A: No, don't know the second one, the first one is Jerry Anne O’Sullivan. Blondy one.
Unidentified Garda: She was up on the tractor earlier on.
Sergeant: It'd do no harm to get the second one’s name again?
Garda A: She's some Yank. I don’t know who the fuck she is.
Unidentified Garda: Is she a Yank?
Garda A: It sounds like it, it sounds like a Yank yeah, the accent anyway.
Unidentified Garda: Sounds like a Yank or Canadian
Garda A: Well whoever, we’ll get Immigration fucking on her.
Brief silence.
Sergeant: She refused to give her name and address and told she would be arrested.
Garda A: ..... and deported
Sergeant: And raped. [Laughs]
Garda A: [Laughing] I wouldn’t go quite that far now yet Jim. She was living down in that crusty camp, fuck’s sake, you never know what you might get.
[All laugh]
Sergeant: Give me your name and address and I’ll rape you.
[All laugh]
Unidentified Garda: Hold it there, give me your name and address there, I’ll rape you.
[All laugh]
Sergeant: Or I’ll definitely rape you.
Unidentified Garda: Will you be me friend on facebook?
[Conversation continues about Facebook use in the Garda Station]