A jury in the trial of a retired superintendent and four gardaí has heard evidence that screenshots of hundreds of WhatsApp messages between the accused superintendent and citizens and other gardaí were downloaded from mobile phones seized under warrant.
Former garda superintendent Eamon O'Neill, Sergeant Anne Marie Hassett, Sergeant Michelle Leahy, Garda Colm Geary and Garda Tom McGlinchey have pleaded not guilty to a total of 39 offences of engaging in conduct tending and intended to pervert the course of justice contrary to common law on dates between October 2016 and September 2019.
Detective Garda Kevin Farrell gave evidence of analysing the mobile phone data from dozens of phones.
He told the court that every time someone interacts with their mobile phone, they leave a digital footprint, and even when messages are deleted, the digital footprint can still be recovered.
During the course of his analysis, he accessed threads of WhatsApp messages between some of the devices seized and a mobile phone associated with the defendant, Eamon O'Neill.
The jury was told that one of the mobile phones which had been provided by a garda had been "wiped" and reset to the default factory setting, which meant the detective was not able to access data from the device.
Examination of another phone belonging to another garda revealed an image sent by a phone associated with superintendent O’Neill was deleted, but an accompanying text message read, "Sorry for the abrupt approach. Any chance of a break on this?"
The jury was also told that Detective Garda Farrell was able to access the data from the phones of two of the accused, Garda Tom McGlinchey and Garda Colm Geary, and that both had provided their passcodes.
Under cross examination by the defence, Detective Garda Farrell agreed that having the passcodes was "significant assistance" to him in his examination of the data on both phones.
