Garda gets €250,000 for trauma of finding bodies

[Podolski]

Media reports yesterday said that a garda had been awarded €250,000 for the trauma of finding the bodies of a colleague and a soldier in 1983. The incident happened in December 1983 at Derrada Woods in County Leitrim at the dramatic end of the Don Tidey kidnapping.

Story in today's Irish Independent http://www.unison.ie/irish_independe...issue_id=15344

I have no doubt that this was a very traumatic event for the garda in question but does this set a precedent?

How many gardai find bodies on a regular basis? What about members of the fire service, ambulance personnel or just ordinary members of the public who are unfortunate enough to stumble across a body on their morning walk? Should they all be compensated for the trauma.

I'm sure it wasn't a very nice thing to see but I'm also sure that the fire brigade, gardai and ambulance staff often see worse in horrific car crashes which can leave people decapitated or otherwise maimed.

I once knew a local fisherman who in the course of his sixty years working life pulled hundreds of bodies out of the river and the sea. These included the body of his own son who fell overboard during a prank that went wrong. This man nevery got a penny even though he saw some pretty horrible things. He knew every current in the river and once when he pulled a body out of the water there were two more stuck beneath it and they all came to the surface together. They had fallen in different places but had been brought there by the tide. He knew where to find them.

People in the Six Counties must have seen some horrific things too when the bombings and killings were at their height. Did any get a penny for their trauma? The victims may have got something, but those that found them got nothing, so why is this garda different?

[Norfolk Enchants]

Media reports yesterday said that a garda had been awarded €250,000 for the trauma of finding the bodies of a colleague and a soldier in 1983. The incident happened in December 1983 at Derrada Woods in County Leitrim at the dramatic end of the Don Tidey kidnapping.

This country is a complete and total joke !!

Stardust victims receive a pittance, no justice and Butterly is rewarded £600,000 for something he should serve time for.

There has been No Justice for the relatives of the Dublin\Monaghan bombings.

McDowell is letting paedoephiles out of jail whilst Fianna Fail politicians campaign for their release.

Donegal Gardai are rewarded by McDowell with state pensions for conspiring to put innoceents in jail for murder......

AND Gardai are being compensated €250,000 for doing their job !!!

[Respvblica]

No its not right.

Do you think there is a mood in the country to change the legal system?
Have we actually ever really debated whether we wanted to keep the old style anglo-saxon legal system inherited from the British or set up our own code?

Of course not because all the parties are full of lawyers and barristers who are not interested in change.

But change at a massive level is needed.
Actually I think it is time to have a debate about the whole constitutional set-up.

[spike]

I haven't read about the court case and/or settlement in this situation.
I remember that there was some difficulty or fears when the bodies were found that they were booby trapped, delaying their movement and identification

It's not correct to say that a person is not entitled to seek damages if they are affected by a gruesome scene. The principle of nervous shock in common law is well established and would appear to be consistant with case law.

Nervous shock, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a medical condition that is well recognised as affecting a persons' wellbeing. In law, nervous shock can be caused by seeing a relative or friend in pain, dead or dismembered as the result of violence or injury. It must however, generally speaking be someone known to you or close to you, such as colleague.

Everyone is different, but I think we all sit in very easy chairs if we are to assume that we would not be affected in a similar way in a similar situation.

[Twin Towers]

I'd well agree that the garda should have been entitled to counselling and have any medical or psychological needs attended too. But cash handouts? Come on?

[Cael]

Next they will be looking for compo for the sound their sirens cause to their ears

[Podolski]

It's not correct to say that a person is not entitled to seek damages if they are affected by a gruesome scene. The principle of nervous shock in common law is well established and would appear to be consistant with case law.

Everyone is different, but I think we all sit in very easy chairs if we are to assume that we would not be affected in a similar way in a similar situation.

I didn't suggest that it was wrong to seek damages. I'm only making the point that many people find bodies or deal with gruesome sights in the line of their work or by just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but they don't get compensation for it. This garda seems to be an exception to that norm, albeit after a 24 year wait. And the poster who made the point about the treatment of the Stardust victims and their families was spot on - they suffered immeasurable trauma but were treated in a very shoddy manner.

There is a cost factor here. Is this going to be like another "Army Deafness" situation with thousands of gardai and others now seeking compensation for the sights they saw in the course of their work? What about nurses and even patients who see such things?

[spike]

Or perhaps doubletime for being stuck in a feckin wood in Leitrim in December......

[spike]

I think that it is important to distinguish between what one seeks accidently and or as a result of everyday tasks, and a genuine personal shock at seeing a loved one or workmate dead or dying.

No court in the land would compensate a medical professional or emergency crew for doing a job they were trained to do. However, nervous shock affects everyone potentially if you are involved with a gruesome scene and a loved one or workmate.

The law is and has been clear on that for years. If that garda had found a ordinary Joe dead, no matter how distressing it was his job. The stardust example is a good one, if the families had found the bodies themselves. If they had, or saw them in an insensitive manner then of course they would have had an action if they felt affected by it.

[dedalus]

I felt the same when I read the article in the paper. People with very severe injuries have got a lot less. It,s the way of the world, I suppose.