Overview
- The court heard that GNBCI officers searched Eamon O’Neill’s office at Roxboro Road Garda Station on 16 May 2019, seizing three phones, a laptop, a hard drive, a USB key, a diary, login details, an intelligence report and his personnel file.
- A Cellebrite analyst testified via video link that data from a phone seized at O’Neill’s home was extracted and converted into a readable report, including SMS, WhatsApp messages, images and video files.
- Earlier testimony detailed a dawn raid on O’Neill’s Ennis home the same morning, his arrest, and the seizure of multiple phones, an iPad and a USB memory stick before he was brought to Athlone for questioning.
- The court was told a parallel Section 62 disclosure inquiry was conducted by GNBCI under Detective Inspector Michael McNulty and that no criminal charges arose from that probe.
- The five defendants, including retired superintendent O’Neill, have pleaded not guilty to 39 counts linked to alleged interference in road-traffic prosecutions, with the defence highlighting concerns about publicity around the investigation.