The Honest Thief

Gavin Farrelly is already serving ten years for his part in an armed robbery, so why would he lie in court now?

Two years ago, he joined two of his mates in a robbery of the post office in Lusk, County Dublin. His job was to smash the glass partition that separated him and the lads from the cash. The lads were charged with keeping the many customers at bay, which they did with the help of a gun. When the vast majority of gardai don't carry guns, you'd have to say that the armed criminal would have the edge in such a crime.

Next thing he knows, Gavin's two mates are dead on the floor, shot by, of all things, an armed garda. Jaysus, he's saying now, they never had a bit of warning. If the garda had shouted out that he was armed, things never would have taken the turn that they did. It's police brutality and excessive use of force and all that. The feckin' garda should be doing time for murder, he should.

What of all the witnesses who heard the garda roar out that he was armed and the robber was to drop his weapon? All the people in the deli, the people behind the post office counter, all of those who were praying to Almighty God that they get out of the place with their lives, can they be telling some whopping great lie? The woman who feared she'd never see her girls again, can anyone believe that she heard the garda give a warning?

Was your man a bit pre-occupied with the smashing? Yes he was indeed, he admitted at the inquest. Too pre-occupied, the legal team representing An Garda Siochana implied, to have heard the garda's warning or heard the shots that killed Gavin's mates before they had a chance to murder the garda and the people cowering on the floor.

Some criminals are just plain stupid. Some are such bastards that you're left wishing the garda had fired one more shot and been done with it.