Shell to Sea have released a very detailed report into the GSOC 'investigation' of the Garda at the center of the 'Corrib Cops Rape Tape' which first came to public attention one year ago today.  The report reveals that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) engaged in spin and misinformation that misled the public over the Corrib ‘rape’ recording incident of March 2011 and undermined the case against Gardaí.  The report details GSOC’s attempts to serve the interests of An Garda Síochána by undermining the women who made the recording public, while deflecting attention from the behaviour of Gardaí.  The document was prepared by Shell to Sea with one of the women about whom the ‘rape’ comments were made and seven academics at NUI Maynooth.  It has been made available online as a PDF and we are republishing it here.

In this personal account Jerrie Ann reveals the exraordinary pressure she was put under by GSOC after Garda in Corrib accidentally recorded themselves discussing threatening to rape a women she had been arrested with during a protest against Shell's experiemntal raw gas pipeline construction in Erris. "The GSOC ‘Public Interest Investigation’ has to date served only to mislead the media and the public about the facts of the case, which are actually straightforward"  This piece was written as an appendix to the Shell to Sea report on the GSOC interim report.

During the week the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission released an interim report on the Garda rape threat tape recordings that were revealed last April. The report contains a major error that suggests GSOC are the source of repeated attempts to spin the story in the media as somehow being the fault of the women the Garda were recorded discussing threatening to rape. The timing of the release of the report was also suspect, coming in the week Shell resumed construction and the day before a national day of action in Erris durig which four Shell to Sea campaigners were injured by Garda and/or private security violence. Such was the level of spin applied that some media made the mistake of leading with the news that the Garda had been cleared of something no one had ever accused them of, directly threatening the two women with rape.

In July the Garda Ombudsman announced that it will begin an inquiry into the arrest and death of Terence Wheelock following injuries sustained in custody at Store Street Garda station in June 2005. This announcement follows two years of silence, denial and cover up by the Gardai and the political establishment.