drawing the line | 

Garda whistleblower takes action against Twitter troll who labelled him ‘corrupt’

John Wilson said he suspects the person behind the account is a former member of An Garda Siochana

Today at 18:11

Courageous whistle-blower John Wilson has said he joined a legal action against X (formerly Twitter) seeking to have the holder of an account identified – after he was falsely accused of being ‘corrupt’ on the social media platform.

And Mr. Wilson said he suspects the person behind the account is a former member of An Garda Siochana who served at a senior level.

Mr. Wilson is one of five people, now being represented by human rights lawyer, Kevin Winters, who has applied to the High Court in Belfast for an order – known as a Norwich Pharmaceutical Order – forcing Twitter to identify the holder of the recently deleted account.

Mr Wilson, who retired from An Garda Siochána in 2013, first brought information of Garda penalty points malpractice to the attention of members of Dáil Eireann under the Garda Siochána Act 2005 in 2012.

In his first interview since details of the case became public, Mr. Wilson – who retired from An Garda Siochana 10 years ago – said: “This account was brought to my attention earlier on this year.

“This individual, on the original biography on the account, made a derogatory comment about a group called ‘Justice 4 All.’

“Now this was a group set up about 10 years ago to highlight garda malpractice and garda corruption.

“I was the chairperson of that group and it was spearheaded by Mick Wallace and Claire Daly.

“Now this Twitter account holder has an obsessive hatred of Mick Wallace and Claire Daly.

“Every time they made a comment on the media, this individual had a prepared rant about Mick Wallace to put up.

“At one stage, that was happening every couple of days.

“And this individual also had a pathological hatred of Sinn Fein.

“And I’d say the reason I was dragged in and defamed by this person was I was the chair of Justice 4 All.”

Asked about the nature of the defamatory tweets aimed towards him, Mr. Wilson replied: “I was called corrupt.”

Mr. Wilson continued that suspicions arose that the account holder may be a former garda of senior rank as reading the Tweets, it became obvious they were being posted by “someone who is obviously very knowledgeable about the higher echelons of An Garda Siochana and the workings of the organisation.

“There’s no point speculation … I have to wait until we have definitive proof … but my opinion is it is someone who had great knowledge of the workings of An Garda Siochana.”

Asked why he felt compelled to join the legal case, Mr Wilson said: “In relation to this individual, I’m hopeful we will have a resolution in the next couple of months and that it is possible to obtain their identity.

“And we will take it from there.

“To be called or be referenced as corrupt … no human being would like that.

“I’m big enough and ugly enough to take constructive criticism and I’ve no problem with that.

“But when someone starts falsely calling me corrupt, that’s where I draw the line and I will always take action to vindicate my good name.”

In a statement issued earlier this week, Mr. Wilson’s solicitor Mr Kevin Winters said the “same” account has also “targeted” his practice.

He says that Twitter, now X’s “refusal to engage on pre-action correspondence seeking details on the account holder’s identity” will lead to similar proceedings being issued before the High court in Dublin “for all other similarly aggrieved clients”.

The solicitor’s view is that: “The collective out workings of all the negative content points to a systemic pattern of attacking anyone who could loosely be described as a ‘whistle-blower’ on alleged Garda corruption.

Mr Winters concluded: “We are confident the court will engage positively on the applications pending and out clients’ reputations and good names vindicated.”