Barry Clifford: Good Cops that Versus The Bad Cops

It seems at last that Maurice McCabe is finally on the road to vindication and the term whistle blower will be restored to its more ethical meaning rather than that of being classed as a rat; when all you wanted to do is expose injustice and be against those who had sworn to uphold the law but chose it break it instead. I choose those words carefully about the road he is on, for though he may be on it he has yet to finish the journey.

On a positive note he represents everything that good character calls for and for anyone that hopes to enact change would aspire to be. I have talked to other members of the Gardai who are like Maurice: John Kelly comes to mind and Martin Ridge to name but a few. These are the good cops that versus the bad cops and are very much part of a minority within a majority. It would be wishful thinking to hope it would have been any other way, and yet it should be so and no real good reason not to be.

I have also met the other kind of cop up close and personal who lied to a judge and to me and by extension many more victims who were the satellites of a case taken against a lower clergy order called The Christian Brothers.  For the first time since, I now feel confident that I can at last move against these cops, now retired, to seek justice. Their ilk are the festering rotting apples that maggots rest easy within who leave behind an empty shell as they move along to nestle inside the next healthy fruit. But is anyone really surprised anymore?

Like any union or fraternity, the Gardai easily fall to the symptoms of what that means and more so when they all wear the same uniform. Put a suit on a passive chimpanzee among an otherwise naked group and you will be astounded at the change it will bring about in that close cousin of ours; the Gardai are easy prey to the same impulses. Yet, this week, accountability has for the first time shone the light directly on a police force as most people did not know it and may it never be the same again.

Corruption within a police force should be the business of a minority that are against the majority and not the other way around. In this way they will be more easily crushed yet we had seen the attempt by the Gardai as a dangerous force that tried to crush the good cops among them. The only thing now left to do is hope they will at last find their moral ground that was lost in the fog of  a dangerous tradition that was an open secret in plain sight. For those that are ‘connected’  be advised to obey the law a bit more in the future because the friends you might have in the police force may not be able to help you this time. For the rest of us, we will have to try to obey the law as usual or otherwise pay the penalty and that includes the Gardai.

By Barry Clifford