Workers Solidarity Movement

An Inquiry by the Garda Ombudsman's office into the death of Terence Wheelock in September 2005 has cleared the Gardai of wrongdoing. Terence Wheelock was taken to hospital from a cell in Store Street Garda barracks in June of 2005 he never regained conciousness and died on September 16th 2005.The family and friends of Terence launched a campaign to get the truth about his treatment in custody and hoped to get justice at the end. They were subjected to garda harassment and met obstacles at every pass. It is obvious from the evidence available that questions had to be answered. The Gardai cleaned and redecorated the cell before any serious forensic work could be carried out.

The Ombudsman's office said today that there is no evidence to support an allegation of assault and that the allegation of sexual assault was "wholly without foundation".

We are left with opinions and experience to come to conclusions ourselves. I would say that in the community from which Terence Wheelock came will have no doubts about what the truth is. In the corridors of power and the Garda Social Club the story will be different but they will be satisfied that the system again has performed as it is meant to and protected the institutions of the state from any "horrible vistas".

Terence Wheelock was a victim of a cruel and unaccountable police force in one of the worst stations , notorious for it's violence , in the state.

This report does not deliver justice it was never intended to and it never could.

The justice for Terence Wheelock campaign has one central demand-an independent public inquiry into the events that led to Terence falling into a coma and his eventual death . To date no such inquiry has occured. Although the family, friends and campaign members never put much store by the Garda Ombudsman's investigation today's report willl do little to allay the legitimate worries that surround the case.

The report is over 190 pages long and will need to be examined in greater detail but it is clear from an initial reading that despite the detail (which in fairness nay have clarified some matters) it completely fails to give a credible account of what happened in Store street.

Overalll, It concludes that although there were a number of procedural and sytemic errors in the handling of the case there was no credible evidence of assault. One 'method' it uses to come to this frankly incredible conclusion by contrasting the 'consistency' of Garda testimonies and the 'inconsistencies' of other eyewitnesses. For instance in the section of the report dealing with the arrest (during which it is believed that there was an assault on Terence Wheelock) we are given the testimonies of Gardai, witnesses and the other lads who were arrested. It points out the anomalies and different emphases given by these witnesses to discredit their claims. The boys in blue on the other hand are all signing perfectly in tune off the same hymn sheet. Ipso facto they most be giving a more credible account of what happened !

Thus it manages to avoid asking the obvious and important questions which emerge from the accounts of this particular event. Like why is there such a massive disparity between how the Gardai describe events and nearly everyone else who was there?According to the Gardai it was all Dixon of dock green on Sean O'Casey avenue -something along the lines of 'the lads put their hands up and then we had a bit of chat on the way to the station' but most of the eyewitnesses talk about scuffles and shouting. I guess you can ask yorself which is more believable.

It appears that for the Ombudsman though consistency is more important than plausibility and damn the cynics who might suggest there might be a bit of pooling of thoughts amongst the Gardai involved in developing their story afterwards or, god forbid that they might have been tempted to dish out a bit of rough justice in the north inner city.

An injury to one is an injury to all