dawn raid on my family home

murraymarmalade

i was woken yesterday morning by 6,i think,mabe 7 guards thumping on my door.i opened the door and was told they had a search warrant.still half asleep i couldnt get my head around what was going on.its a this point i must say ive never been in bother with the guards or come to their attention for driving or public order offences nor anything else for that matter.so one could understand my shock at having my 3 teenage girls hauled outta their beds and told to wait in the sittingroom with me where i chatted to a detective while they carried out a search of my house,loft and garden shed.as time was going on i could sense the detective could see they had the wrong man and revealed that MY car had been reported as seen leaving the scene of a burglery last monday morning around 10am!:eek: FFS......i couldnt belive it.needless to say their search was fruitless.
i asked could this be just someone reporting bull**** and was told that it was definitly my car that was seen...after a lot of questions i told them my car hadnt been in the specfic area for 3 months and was parked outside my house last monday as i studied for an exam that afternoon.my car has an imobliser so couldnt have been moved from ouside my door.

anyway to finish.....they left(im sure satisfied they had the wrong guy,if not a little puzzled)
this raid has totally consumed my thoughts for the last 24hrs as me,my wife and family are 100% innoncent of ANY wrongdoing.
could someone with some experience of such,post something to help me get the guards to admit they have the wrong guy as the raid was left with a "we'll be in touch" thanks in advance.:(

Maximilian

Wow that must have been upsetting. Not sure there's much you can do if they had a warrant but I know bugger all about that area of law. You have my sympathies for what that's worth. At least it will be a good story to tell in a few years.

bob bobbing

that's shocking stuff. Savage case of wrong identity if you are interested in doing a story on it you should get in touch with me:pac:

MarkR

Maybe your car has been cloned. Same model, different car, same reg.

murraymarmalade

thanks lads.and bob,give me a few minutes.im gonna try ring ENNIS guard station again to see if they have anything else to add to conclude their investigations(i tried,and failed,to speak to the dectecive who was in my sittingroom yesterday morning)

been speaking with a friend who says,this story is ver,very odd indeed.

bob bobbing

i sent ya a private message with my email address feel free to contact me

Hooch

O/P, warrants are not gained easily. Judges no longer give them out willy nilly. Gardaí must swear on an information and answer questions for the judge. So in regards to the search of your hime it was completed fully in occordance with law.

In regards the information for the warrant, as someone already said your car reg could have been put on another car. Hense the search.

How old are your sons?? And can they drive??

DD67

nice guy always wrote: »

How old are your sons?? And can they drive??

The orginal post says teenage daughters, no mention of sons

Hooch

DD67 wrote: »

The orginal post says teenage daughters, no mention of sons

Opps....sorry misread:o

?Cee?view

Not being smart here, but it would be best for yourself to find a way of letting this go. You will likely never get an apology or explanation from the "Guardians of the Peace". If something sinister such as your car being cloned has ocurred, they will tell you if they need you as a witness, but otherwise you're unlikely to hear anything.

dats_right

mikemac wrote: »

It realy does seem to me that your car was cloned.
Whoever was responsible had the same car and model and used your reg

That really is quite an assumption to make based on the information provided.

1. The OP was apparently informed that his car 'was seen leaving the scene of a burglary', it is not apparent that the car was identified on CCTV, so it is quite possible that is is mere human error combined with coincidence (eg. similar reg, make, model, etc.) or a deliberate spiteful act on the part of an eyewitness.

2. The OP claims that the car was parked outside his house and assumes that because a) he wasn't driving the car, and b) it has an immobiliser that the car couldn't have moved. Whereas a point that Nice Guy Always has alluded to is that it is at least possible that a member of his family drove the car without his knowledge or consent and secondly it is also at least possible that there is a second set of keys that may have been lost, copied or maybe even retained by a previous owner that were used.

To immediately jump to the conclusion that the car was cloned for the purposes of a burglary would seem a bit rash to me, as it it quite a bit of work, for rather limited bounty. Perhaps if it were a bank robbery it might be more likely to clone a car, but for a mere burglary I would have thought it excessive. More likely 1 or 2 above me thinks.

Fighting Irish

bob bobbing wrote: »

that's shocking stuff. Savage case of wrong identity if you are interested in doing a story on it you should get in touch with me:pac:

typical

54kroc

bob bobbing wrote: »

that's shocking stuff. Savage case of wrong identity if you are interested in doing a story on it you should get in touch with me:pac:

WTF
As bad as it is these things happen,I know how the op feels as it's happened to me as well but come on it's hardly news worthy.

Trojan911

murraymarmalade wrote: »

this raid has totally consumed my thoughts for the last 24hrs as me,my wife and family are 100% innoncent of ANY wrongdoing.(

Have you considered consulting with a solicitor or the Garda Ombudsman?

cruizer101

Do the guards not have to present you with a copy of the search warrent, I'd imagine there would be more information on it.

Iknow if a judge has issued the warrent they have every right to raid your house but personally I'd still be looking for an apology.

UrbanFox

This is quite a shocking experience for the innocent like the OP and family. The constitution marks the inviolability of the home save for intrusions that are in accordance with law. The point is that it is quite an event to have your "castle" entered and searched like this.

I don't quite go with the advice to let it go. You will probably not be able to do that until you have a proper explanation for what happened. If the warrant was valid and properly executed there would seem to be no comeback.

As with so many other areas of modern life what people might communicate verbally as distinct from what they will write down may vary. In polite terms, a verbal explanation from the Gardai means utterly nothing and might leave you wondering for ever.

I would write to the local superintendent explaining your considerable upset, your embarrassment in front of neighbours and demand a written explanation for what happened and why. If you don't get a satisfactory explanation, in writing, consider complaining to the ombudsman about the lack of a reply. I don't think that there is a complaint to the Ombudsman about the search itself if it was conducted correctly.

My next door neighbour is a solicitor ! He was raided, under authority of a warrant, one fine evening by several of our finest with no result. It seems that one of his teenage sons was maliciously (and quite wrongly) fingered as a suspect by a particular piece of dirt who did it to divert attention from his own mischief. It caused huge upset and genuine distress to the whole family. It is not enough to simply suggest that it be let go without a proper explanation.

In practical terms the best you can hope for is an anodyne letter that probably will not answer you fully but that is probably the best that can be hoped for realistically. If you you can get that much out of the Gardai you might then be able to file away this nasty experience.

With resepect, if you are not used to dealing with legal issues you might be better advised to get some guidance from your solicitor to reassure you and to write on your behalf. This should leave you reassured that you have received "indepenent" advice from someone on your side. On second thoughts, given that you are dealing with the Gardai, I would consult a solicitor but do not expect this to go anywhere.

Trojan911

UrbanFox wrote: »

given that you are dealing with the Gardai, I would consult a solicitor but do not expect this to go anywhere.

Maybe, maybe not. Different circumstances however similar principles here.

Best to consult a Solicitor/Ombudsman. The OP will have a better idea of where he stands then (& I would hold off going to the press until then).

timmywex

I personnally dont see the point in a solicitor/ombudsman, they had the search warrent so everything was rosy as far as the law is concerned.


Its just bad luck. At least they didnt break your door down :cool:

Our man in Havana

Firstly, the OP should obtain a copy of the warrant. He is unlikely to get this without the assistance of a solicitor.
Once he and his solicitor are aware of what information was given to obtain the warrant they can evaluate the situation fully and work from there.

murraymarmalade

thanks again lads for posting.sometimes when you take something out of your head and share it with others it helps.....and just a little while ago ive started to settle down after the ordeal.

earlier on today i tried contacting the dectective but was told he was away till monday evening,4 times now since yesterday afternoon ive contacted the guard station looking for him and failed.

i thought about contacting the papers but will hold off for now.its true for one poster,the embarresment is unreal,i live in a lovely little estate in ennis and my neighbours would have seen the 2 unmarked cars yesterday morning.forgot to mention,they took loads of details of my family eg my 14 yr old daughters name,date of birth etc,:mad:
someone else suggested earlier that one of my daughters could have driven the car on monday morning.........nope,not possible,the 3 girls were in school.my car was never near the scene of the burglery.

i thought about letting it go sort of thing but i thought of contacting a local td like joe carey.think i may take that route,just to get answers like,am i,my wife and my 3 daughters in the frame for this burglery,(well they did take everyones details in my house)ask them for a copy of the warrant,what kinda information the got the search warrant on.mabe they will take it more seriously then..

sharky86

prob need to happen more than once but my neighbour sued a local gard for harrassment after he filed and received 9 search warrents for her home. Woman has never touched a drug in her life and lives at home not.. the son only home every few months from the uk.. Won the case aswell.. still never got the words sorry

maidhc

I'm not a burglar, but if I was one I don't think I would use my family car for the purposes of my work any more than I would print business cards.

Seems odd the gardai would just search a house on that basis. Something odd here.

Andi123

in order for the Garda to get a search warrant as stated they must present their case to a judge , who will issue the search warrant. therefore the basis for the search warrant will be on record. therefore you should contact a solicitor , in order for them to write to the superintendent , seeking the basis upon which the search warrant was granted and on what evidence .

murraymarmalade

agreed! something is VERY odd here.......eg i have about 5 black bags of clothes and loads of boxes of stuff in the shed yet they,couldnt have looked through the shed properly as they would have had to empty the shed to get to the back of it..which they didnt!
they stood in my sittingroom and tried to convince me it was my car...i was gobsmacked.while studying that morning,my car was about 10 feet away from me on my driveway.(it was outside my sittingroom window)

ttm

maidhc wrote: »

I'm not a burglar, but if I was one I don't think I would use my family car for the purposes of my work any more than I would print business cards.

Also would be good if OP could say if they searched the car, no mention of that so far and if it was seen at the sceen it would be be strange for them not to have had a look at it.

Our man in Havana

Would a search warrant for the house cover the car automatically?

sharky86

was the warrent in your name or one of your daughters.. not meaning to insult but if it was in your daughter then they can only search there room and common area's where as if it is in your name they can only search your romm and common area's.. to best of my knowledge a warrant wont cover a car too since they dont need a warrent to search cars.. something got to do with the misuse of drugs act that they can search cars at will

murraymarmalade

my wife had the car gone when they called.....but,no they didnt seem interested in seeing or searching it,they did know however that a hubcap was missing from the rear wheel........which it is!

i swear.i was half asleep when i had the warrant in my hand,and with cops 6/7 cops walking in past me,the only thing i remember is that it had 2 pages....im clueless as to whose name was on it.never seen a warrant before..

sharky86

murraymarmalade wrote: »

my wife had the car gone when they called.....but,no they didnt seem interested in seeing or searching it,they did know however that a hubcap was missing from the rear wheel........which it is!

i swear.i was half asleep when i had the warrant in my hand,and with cops 6/7 cops walking in past me,the only thing i remember is that it had 2 pages....im clueless as to whose name was on it.never seen a warrant before..

Check to see if your wife has any off-shore bank account's

Victor

cruizer101 wrote: »

Do the guards not have to present you with a copy of the search warrent, I'd imagine there would be more information on it.

At the time of the search they only have to show it to you.

Our man in Havana

Does that include allowing you to read it?

argosy2006

contact tabloid newspapers, embarrass guards,they didnt care about embarrassing u,, i,m sure ur neighbours had a field day,tongues wagging,,,set the story straight to every one in one go,, call de papers,,and charge for any interviews,, get your self enough for a family holiday to help with the ordeal!!! making things like this public makes people do there jobs better in the future, so u would be providing a service,

Victor

Bond-007 wrote: »

Does that include allowing you to read it?

Yes. they could try all sorts of cheeky stuff otherwise.

McCrack

There's two avenues here:

1) chalk it to experience and forget it

2) probe into lawfulness of the search. You will need the assistance of a solicitor here. He/she will be seeking to discover the basis upon the information and whether the warrant was lawfully applied for and executed.

If the search was unlawful you owing to a defect in the chain of events you can sue and claim for quite a substantial amount of money in compensation.

eagle_&_bear

Bond-007 wrote: »

Would a search warrant for the house cover the car automatically?

It all depends on where the car is in relation to the house. There's a wealth of caselaw which has built up around forecourt issues (driveways, outhouses, allotment sheds, storage facilities) and whether or not gates are up and whether or not they are closed etc

so to answer the question would be dependant on a factual scenario. But the car could fall within the warrant details, depending on the wording of the warrant.

There are also issues such as incidental searches which are allowable even if not stipulated expressly on the face of the warrent. There usually would have to be some kind of linking evidence within the main subject-matter of the warrant to justify the incidental search. A client would challenge any evidence found in the incidenctal search as being 'fruit from the poison tree' and thus unconstitutionally obtained which should make it inadmissable but, there are exceptional circumstances where incidental evidence is allowed - you'd have to satisfy the trial judge as to the need at the time of the trial. Obviously if counsel disproves the need, then that evidence is removed and the case may or may not fall and a nolle prosequi may ensue.

but everything above is heavily fact dependant on the scenario

Sangre

People give out about the garda doing nothing, criminals running wild but when they go out on searches people are calling for their heads and suggesting the newspapers should be involved if they get it wrong.

If the guards are doing their job they are inevitably going to have run ins with the witness because the systems is run by and relies on humans who are prone to errors. It could have been garda error or it could have been witness error.

I have no doubt this even was very traumatic and highly embarrassing but you if the garda had to answer and apologies for every search, arrest, questioning or detention that didn't result in a conviction they'd never get anything done.

sharky86

McCrack wrote: »

There's two avenues here:

1) chalk it to experience and forget it

2) probe into lawfulness of the search. You will need the assistance of a solicitor here. He/she will be seeking to discover the basis upon the information and whether the warrant was lawfully applied for and executed.

If the search was unlawful you owing to a defect in the chain of events you can sue and claim for quite a substantial amount of money in compensation.

I'd go with option two

ttm

Victor wrote: »

Yes. they could try all sorts of cheeky stuff otherwise.

So say you do actually have your wits about you at 6am in the morning when you have just been got out of bed could you ask to make a photocopy or photograph the document so you have a copy of it?

drdeadlift

.

drdeadlift

dats_right wrote: »

That really is quite an assumption to make based on the information provided.

1. The OP was apparently informed that his car 'was seen leaving the scene of a burglary', it is not apparent that the car was identified on CCTV, so it is quite possible that is is mere human error combined with coincidence (eg. similar reg, make, model, etc.) or a deliberate spiteful act on the part of an eyewitness.

2. The OP claims that the car was parked outside his house and assumes that because a) he wasn't driving the car, and b) it has an immobiliser that the car couldn't have moved. Whereas a point that Nice Guy Always has alluded to is that it is at least possible that a member of his family drove the car without his knowledge or consent and secondly it is also at least possible that there is a second set of keys that may have been lost, copied or maybe even retained by a previous owner that were used.

To immediately jump to the conclusion that the car was cloned for the purposes of a burglary would seem a bit rash to me, as it it quite a bit of work, for rather limited bounty. Perhaps if it were a bank robbery it might be more likely to clone a car, but for a mere burglary I would have thought it excessive. More likely 1 or 2 above me thinks.

This car copying act happens alot more than people think,Just think about it it isnt hard to pull off.

Out of curiosity what type of car does the op have?

Our man in Havana

It is happening an awful lot since barrier free tolling came in for the M50.

Whitewater-AGS

ttm wrote: »

So say you do actually have your wits about you at 6am in the morning when you have just been got out of bed could you ask to make a photocopy or photograph the document so you have a copy of it?

You are entitled to see the original warrent, but you wont be allowed touch it, you are entitled to a copy of the warrent but you cannot make this copy yourself.

Gardai will not allow you handle the original warrent just in case you rip,burn or eat the thing:)

Our man in Havana

you are entitled to a copy of the warrant

That may be the case, but a solicitor will be needed to obtain it.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

Whitewater-AGS wrote: »

You are entitled to see the original warrent, but you wont be allowed touch it, you are entitled to a copy of the warrent but you cannot make this copy yourself.

Gardai will not allow you handle the original warrent just in case you rip,burn or eat the thing:)

What the hell?

How on earth are you supposed to read a warrant if you aren't allowed hold it?
Presumably it's 'good practice' to not even let anyone into your house unless you've looked over the warrant, seen that it's signed by a judge, everything in order etc? Otherwise you end up with situations like those RIAA raids which had no legal basis?

I always assumed in these situations you'd have the door on the chain and have the warrant passed to you..

Our man in Havana

Normally you would be given a copy of the warrant for your records, well that is what happens in NI and the UK.

I have come across a few cases where the person was not allowed to read the warrant, all the got was a simple flash of it. Even after the search i.e. the next day the Garda involved still refused to show the subject the warrant or even give him a copy of it. In the end he needed to get his solicitor to write to the Superintendent demanding a copy before he got anywhere.

Hooch

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI wrote: »

I always assumed in these situations you'd have the door on the chain and have the warrant passed to you..

Do this and im afraid your door will be introduced to the enforcer:D

As pointed out by whitewater an origional cannot be passed to the person as (s)he may eat rip or burn it. Some members copy the warrant and take that as well as origional and show the copy at the door.

Also if you kept your door chained then another person in the house could be destorying evidence etc.

Turner

Murraymarmalade.

Contact the Superintendent at Ennis Garda Station.

Inform him of what happened and tell him you want to meet him to get briefed on exactly what happened before and what led up to your house being searched.

He will find out off the detectives exactly what happened.

If you are unhappy with his response contact the Garda Ombudsman.

God if my parents house got searched in error i would be screaming for answers.

helimachoptor

Bond-007 wrote: »

It is happening an awful lot since barrier free tolling came in for the M50.

Was thinking that myself, there was a story in one of the sunday rags a couple of weeks ago about one of their reporters getting bills for going over the toll bridge. His reg was cloned and put on a transit!

In saying that many years ago while in my Grans early on saturday, AGS (specifically the Drug squad) the house. someone had told them my uncle was dealing and taking drugs ( the chap was actually doing trials at the time for some old 1st division clubs, didnt drink/smoke) Anyway like the op the estate was small enough they turned up with all sirens blaring waking everyone up. Anyway the closest things to drugs they found was my grandads Golden Virginia

Severe embarrasment, but one of the senior guys from the station came down the next day to apologise, spoke with the neighbours explained that someone had made a false complaint... didnt take much

blackcoat

argosy2006 wrote: »

contact tabloid newspapers, embarrass guards,they didnt care about embarrassing u,, i,m sure ur neighbours had a field day,tongues wagging,,,set the story straight to every one in one go,, call de papers,,and charge for any interviews,, get your self enough for a family holiday to help with the ordeal!!! making things like this public makes people do there jobs better in the future, so u would be providing a service,

what an idiotic thing to say.
to the original poster, i completely understand how this incident would have been upsetting and frustrating. however, using it as an excuse to "embarrass the guards" is action that only some fool with a chip on his shoulder would take. they obviously had some good reason to believe they had to search your house even if it was due to some false evidence or statement from a witness. even a witness who gave the wrong reg.
of course you're entitled to an explanation and im sure if you arrange a meeting with the local inspector or superintendent he will explain why this happened and if necessary apologise for the inconvenience.

(edited to correct a few mistakes..sorry! im new here!)

?Cee?view

blackcoat wrote: »

the local inspector or superintendent he will explain why this happened and if necessary apologise for the inconvenience.

In the circumstances described, how could an apology but be necessary? Is simple mistake, or acting negligently on misinformation, considered an excuse to invade someone's home without a subsequent apology?

murraymarmalade

just an update for anyone still interested in this story.ive contacted a solicitor to get some answers as 4 phonecalls to the garda staion have yielded no answers,no returned calls etc.im hoping this solicitor will be more sucessfull than i was....