Garda accountability

Fast, bloody and brutal. This is how one of Garda Donal Corcoran's victims described the attack on him during the Mayday 2002 protests.

On Monday, Corcoran became the latest Garda to be cleared of charges relating to the Mayday incident.

He was acquitted by a jury of assaulting students Brian Hayden, Oisín Breen and Katie Crean during the May Day incident, even though he admitted using excessive force on Hayden.

During his trial, video footage was shown of the Dublin-based Garda chasing Breen with his baton raised — but he claimed he didn't intend to use the weapon.

Corcoran became the face of the riots when several television stations showed him beating Hayden across the head with a baton.

Corcoran's case, however, was full of mixed messages.

In court, his superiors described him as an excellent communicator with good people skills. At the same time, he admitted that his use of the baton had been excessive and said he would have to apologise to Hayden after the case.

The three students who were batoned were exercising their right to peaceful protest during the Reclaim the Streets event in 2002. The heavy-handed violence of Gardaí on Dame Street took that right away. Corcoran may have been the only one caught on camera, but he wasn't the only one who acted with excessive force.

While respecting the independence of the court process and jury trials, there are more than a few raised eyebrows this week.

We do not live in a police state. The Garda Síochána cannot be allowed to assault people with impunity. The protestors who suffered at the hands of gardaí on Mayday 2002 must now be seriously questioning their faith in the judicial system.