Wednesday 6 April 2011

Gardai "joke" about raping Shell to Sea protester - recorded conversation

Here is a recorded conversation between some gardai (Irish police) who are having a good old laugh and a joke about the idea of raping a suspect in order to obtain her name and address. 

The officers concerned had earlier been associated with the arrest of two Shell to Sea protesters in Mayo and had left a video recorder,  taken from one of the women,  switched on in the back of their squad car.

What, exactly, are they laughing at?  What is funny?  That's what gets me.

It is hard to imagine a gang of the most disadvantaged navvies deriving comparable mirth from such an ignorant, back-of-the-truck  discussion -  never mind our guardians of law and order supposedly going about their duty.





Big thanks to Ciancool for recording

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17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nabbed ,Nabbed , Nabbed , so so absolutely Nabbed, surely these guys have to go or the Gardai will lose any of the smidgen of cred that they ever had . They are meant to be one of the first services a rape victim engages how can they portray themselves as a sympathethic support service for victims of such a violent crime with this out there .If these guys arent kicked out of the force and sent back home to the farm then this truly is a Gombeen Nation.

Ella said...

Can you imagine a rape victim having to report to one of these Gardai. Awful.

anna said...

When I came here from NI I found it admirable that the Garda had one of the highest acceptance ratings of any EU police force . Obviously with NI having a long struggle to make that happen , I though this was very admirable, a cornerstone of democracy. But some disturbing things happened, eg a tribunal over Garda behaviour in Donegal. And I read alarming comments last year from Emily O’Reilly, ombudsman : This said that we have dozens if not hundreds of semi state bodies whose board members can be unelected, and receive large state fees . Yet these bodies are not open to Freedom of information requests- and NEITHER are the Garda. Emily O’Reilly said that in the case of the Garda, this situation was UNIQUE in Europe.
I would like to see greater focus on Garda behaviour, much more openness, Freedom of information etc….there really is a sense that they are untouchable After all we want to see our police force with exactly the same standards and accountability as any other respected EU nation.

Ponyboy said...

I spent a couple of seasons as a labourer for Murphy's back in the day in London and encountered many navvies "in the back of the van" on our way to shitty dangerous building sites. You're right - the last thing you'd hear from people like this would be that type of commentary. Look - there would be sniggers, no doubt and wide eyed comments about the page three feature but the particular brand we're witnessing here is reserved for those ignoramus types who get drawn to positions of power albeit not major and usually under cover of a uniform. You've seen it a million times in armies around the world. Systematic rape as weapon. I'm not saying that these guys are in that league and I know there are those out there who would argue that "shure they're only coddin". That's as may be but the thought is there and it's made its way to the surface. The kernel exposed for what it is. The thin veneer of civilisation scratched and torn revealing what to expect from these uniforms given the chance next time or the time after OR finally when they think they are in no danger of getting caught - the lads sticking together like. SAD is what it is.
PB

Anonymous said...

MR GM a grunt is all you can really expect from a pig as the old saying goes, coppers are pretty TICK anywhere you go its takes a certain mentality to join in the first place, hardly appeals to the bright honest ambitious mind, these culchies sound particularly TICK from some godforsaken bog just like our world famous gombeen masters of the universe builders and politcians UP KERRY BH

The Gombeen Man said...

@ Anon. Nabbed is right. "Caught rapid", as the Dublin parlance once went.

@ Ella. No, it would not inspire confidence. Would they take the complainant/complaint seriously, I wonder?

@ Anna. As far as I am aware, the Police Ombudsman in NI has far greater powers too.

@ Ponyboy. Agreed mate. Some of the cleverest people I came across (esp when in London) dug roads for a living. Which is why I was careful to use the term "disadvantaged" insofar as many people who do not end up "professionals" (as the archaic term they still use here goes) like a Garda, for instance, might not have enjoyed the basic advantages in life educational opportunities that Templemore's Best have had. As I say, what gets me is what these idiots find funny?

@ BH. Yes indeed. It's a career path that, I am glad to say, I have never considered. It's nearly a generation-to-generation thing with them. The Garda needs to be reformed root and branch and opened up to reflect the community in general.

Anonymous said...

Right back at you Gombeen Man ; "Shhhhnaaaaaared " as it goes in the Limerick dialect .(snared)

Ella said...

Hi GM, got this link from the indo.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/top-garda-to-decide-if-charges-should-be-brought-2612590.html

"In the short term, he (the Garda Commissioner) could decide to transfer some of the gardai to other stations, pending the outcome of whatever investigation goes ahead."

eh didn't they do that with paedophile priests and we all know how that went.

Laurence said...

What really jumps out at you from the tape is the sheer level of unintelligence. These cops seem to have just wandered into Templemore without anything other than the most basic schooling. They are like caricatures from some old Spike Milligan sketch or that awful Pat Shortt show.

Anonymous said...

What gets me about this, or at least the thing that gets me the most of the various aspects of it that are disturbing is this.

The guard (Jim) who made the initial rape comment was the senior of the group so its highly unlikely that hes never dealt with a rape and it would be naive to think that the rest of the group have never had to deal with one either.

They should know from experience exactly what it is that they are talking about, how destructive and harmful it is, the motivations behind it and the kind of people who do it, and yet for some reason it all seems to have gone over their heads.

I think that if a similar conversion were to start amongst a bunch of navies Jim would end up lying on his back in short order if he didn't change his tune on the first challenge.

SH

Anonymous said...

***"In the short term, he (the Garda Commissioner) could decide to transfer some of the gardai to other stations, pending the outcome of whatever investigation goes ahead."

eh didn't they do that with paedophile priests and we all know how that went.****

How is that in any way comparative? Serious lack of judgement or here. It's not about rape or serious intent, it's about BAD WORDS. Has our culture and people really been dumbed down that much to only have reflex reactions to bad words said in jest, no matter who they are. If thats' the case we should all be locked up and the excuse of they should know better cos they are public servants is bunk, they are human.


Seriously, if you think Guards, Doctors or any other public servants are above the humour that blokes everywhere banter about in jobs when together, you're naive and PC to the extreme. This really is a non-issue, it'd be different if it was truly malicious, said to intimidate or if the arrestees where in the car with them. That's not the case.

This total non-issue is a complete distraction to the even greater crime of our government and the Shell corporation. Don't blame the grunts on the ground.

...and those of you bringing up the situation of a 'rape case', it's bollocks and it's not comparative cos it's NOT a 'rape case', it's two blokes on their own in a car joking while doing the job. There is no equivalence, it's not in-context and shouldn't be taken as such. Making mountains-out-of-molehills is typical of our blame/victim culture that completely ignores the true villains.


What do any of us say when not being recorded? Let's get some common sense here.

The Gombeen Man said...

Yes, garda.

Seriously though, Anon. You say that "...if you think Guards, Doctors or any other public servants are above the humour that blokes everywhere banter about in jobs when together...".

Well I can't say I have ever had such a conversation, or "banter", even in print houses I worked in.

How could coppers think such remarks are funny?

If nothing else, it would indicate that they are pretty thick.

Too thick to have responsibility.

Ella said...

@Anonymous 09 April 2011, 11h33.

I just asked himself when he's at work and having a banter with the lads and a female colleague walks by, would it be usual for either himself or his colleagues to say "oh I'll rape her". Well I nearly caused a domestic, because it's not normal, neither himself or any of his colleagues would dream of passing an utterance like that.

It's way more than the lads having a joke, there is NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING funny about rape and I think most people would agree.

Anonymous said...

***I just asked himself when he's at work and having a banter with the lads and a female colleague walks by, would it be usual for either himself or his colleagues to say "oh I'll rape her". Well I nearly caused a domestic, because it's not normal, neither himself or any of his colleagues would dream of passing an utterance like that. ***


You obviously haven't worked in many places where there's a lot of men and I don't mean 'building-sites' or 'the pub' either and, as all ready been pointed out, there was no serious intention of 'rape' in the remark. Guess what, I have heard lads utter such sardonic remarks, middle-class/upper class ones too.

This really is another trivial distraction from more important issues.


***How could coppers think such remarks are funny? ***

Maybe they read Loaded magazine.


***It's way more than the lads having a joke, there is NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING funny about rape and I think most people would agree.***


Tell Frankie Boyle, Dud, Pete and other 'intelligent' comics that, or the audience that repeat/recite their jokes in work.

I won't say what is or isn't funny since it's subjective and I won't be arrogant enough to state what 'most people' agree on, but a joke between mates in private is not to be taken as 'responsible action' or actual sincere 'opinion' on any matter.

Whatever their intelligence, which is a different issue involving the process of becoming a Garda, this is something blown out of all proportion that overshadows the real story of the nature of the protest rather than highlighting it.


You just sound like 'blasphemed' chatholics.

The Gombeen Man said...

So Anon. It's "sardonic", is it? For your information, I've many years' experience working in male-dominated environments, some of them rather rough and ready, as my background is a print one. Even now where I work it's mostly blokes. I have never - repeat never - heard anyone joke about rape...

If you look at my original post, the point I am making is: "What, exactly, are they laughing at? What is funny?"

You quote some comics there, presumably in defence of these coppers. Perhaps you could enlighten us in regard to some of the jokes that their audiences - perhaps the coppers in this instance - recite at work?

Anonymous said...

I ve just seen pictures of the Gardai involved ,they are actually quiet old , one of them at least in his mid forties , adds another element of sadness to it I think .I would have sworn that they way they were carrying on that they were little shits straight out of templemoore .

Shamanonymous said...

@The Gombeen Man: precisely nothing that they're saying is funny, because they probably haven't got the prerequisite 'way with words' needed to make a topic as dark as rape seem funny.
But...
Some people can pull it off. Bill Hicks had a skit about a child-molesting alter-ego goat (which everybody at my workplace loves to recite (when offended ears begone!). It is, was, and ever shall be funny. Without black humour, an important coping mechanism would be lost, and we'd be stuck in the mire of Victorian euphemistic double-speak that had the Marquis de Sade and Oscar Wilde locked up.

All that being said (I hate censorship), those cops do sound like thick, ignorant, bog-gargling scum... But sher, that's the trad, isn't it?!?