Police Methods in Ireland.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 36, 4 September 1902, Page 3

Police Methods in Ireland.

BOMB time ago we called attention to the revelations made in the case of Sergeant Sheridan, who was dismissed from the Irish police force for having, as was proved to the satisfaction of the authorities, committed several crimes for which innocent persons were later on convicted on hia testimony. During the consideration in Parliament of the vote for the Royal Constabulary this affair again came up for discussion. In a leader the Daily Newt says :—: — As Sir Robert Reid told the House of Commons on Thursday, there in not a blacker instance in the most despotio Courts of Europe of the frightful danger incurred when policemen are free from all popular control. Even the Chief Secretary for Ireland, while refusing to prosecute Sheridan, admits that ' his conduot haa been dastardly and outrageous.' Mr T. W. Russell told the House that this was one of the most deplorable and saddest cases ht remembere in connection with Irish politics. So far only a few of the facts, and those of the barest, have reaohed ths»publio. Some of the fuller details can now be disclosed. The flrst definite case against Sheridan as to his inventing crimes and then accusing other people of them, oocurred at Hospital, in Limerick, where he was stationed as a constable. A man named Bray, of that place, was known to be on friendly terms with a Mrs Quinlan, who kept a small farm half a mile off. This man was discovered by Sheridan and another constable lying drunk in the lane one night. Sheridan took the man's cap and carried it to a spot near Mrs Quintan's hayrick, and then set firs to the hay, returning in a few minutes to rouse the drunken Bray. With the aid of the other constable he led him to the barracks, where the fttnpefied man was charged with setting fire to the hayrick. No opportunity was given to the prisoner to Becure bail, but within six days he was put on trial — not in his own oounty, but in Cork— before a packed jury. He was sentenced to three years' penal servitude. After serving two years and three months Bray was discharged with his health so shattered that ht died three months later. Not long after Sheridan secured the conviction of another man for a crime he had himself committed. This time he was on patrol duty with a colleague named Anderson, and he arrested a laborer named Murphy, who was resting on a fence outside the village. Murphy asked what he was charged with, but could get no answer, either there or in the barraoks. The man was afterwards charged with killing a donkey owned by a villager called Cragan. It is now admitted by the Government that they have evidence that Sheridan was himself the criminal, but others go further »nd say that he did not kill the animal until after he had seen Murphy safely locked in the cells. All the people in the locality say he arrested Murphy first, and did not commit the crime until later the same night. Murphy was so terrified at the sentence inflicted upon Bray that, to avoid a protracted trial, and in the hope that he would be treated leniently, he pleaded guilty the first time he was brought into oourt. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. All this time Sheridan was rising in favor in the constabulary, receiving rewards for these conviction?, and fast making for promotion. He was removed from Limerick to Leitrim. There he out off the tails of several cowa with a razor, and he and oonstable Reid oharged a man named named MacGoohan with the offenoe. The victim was hauled before a packed jury in Sligo, where he was tried by Judge Andrews. MacGoohan's solicitor advised him to plead guilty, but he declared he would sooner go to his grave than admit he committed so dastardly an outrage upon a neighbor's cattle. On the first day of the trial two Roman Catholios were allowed on the jury, beoause the panel was exhausted, the judgej udge deolaring that absent jurors would be fined if they did not turn up in the morning. On the day following, when the jury was being empanneled, 60 Catholics were ordered to stand aside, and a paoked jury settled the case. When MaoGoohan in the dock heard Sheridan's evidence he turned to Reid and said, ' Now you tell the truth and let an innocent man go free.' The appeal disooncerted Reid, who broke down completely in hia evidence. The judge then disparaged Reid to the jury, and said, ' If you acquit the prisoner it can only be by blackening the character of Sergeant Sheridan.' MacGoohan was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and Sheridan got £5 reward. A young farmer who knew the prisoner went about the faira declaring openly that he believed the constable had committed the outrage himself. Sheridan then invited a friend of his own to organise a moonlighting expedition against the young farmer. When MacGoohan's time was up he went before a magistrate and swore aa to his innocence. That was the beginning of the discovery of Sergeant Sheridan's guilt. MacGoohan waß compensated by the totally inadequate Bum of *100. The aged mother of the man Bray is receiving 10s a wesk from the Government, and Murphy was asked whether he would be satisfied with £25, and took that paltry sum, againat the advice of his friends. The truth in these cases waa only established after the constables called aa witnesses at a private inquiry were given an indemnity. The affair, however, was found to be so bad that the Chief Secretary was forced to go back upon hia word, that the witnesses should not suffer. In his own words, he had the position put to the four constables thus : — ' You have givon this information under promise of indemnity. You can have that indemnity ; but it must be dear to you that you can be employed in no position of trust in the Hoyal Irish Constabalary in the future. If you care to lounge about in the depot doin« nothing, drawing your regulation pay, you can do so, but my advice to you is to get out of the Royal Irish Constabulary and ee-k elsewhere to make good the grave offences of which you have been guilty.' Reid and Anderson thereupon elected to go.

Sheridan had been dismissed previously over a totally different case, and he has openly declared that the Government dare not prosecute him. He is known at present to be in America. But there is a growing feeling that the man ought to be placed on trial. Until he is the belief will grow that the Government is afraid that revelations of an equally black character would follow were the man to be arrested. It ife stated emphatically that Sheridan's case ia by no means an isolated one in the Irish constabulary. The Irish members are therefore pressing for a publio inquiry, and the public is likely to agree with them that the time has arrived when the whole system of administering justice in Ireland need ■ the fullest ravision.