the mystery of the broken car light

It was November.
A Thursday evening.
8.30pm.
The wettest day of the year.
Flooding had been reported all over Ireland.
I was driving home through the town of Naas.
A police car drew out of the station and followed me.
It followed me out of town.
When I was outside of town the car flashed its lights, signalling me to pull in.
I found a safe spot and parked at the side of the road.
A thick set male police officer approached my car and tapped on the passenger side window.
I wound down the window.
The police officer said: "Your light's gone."
I said: "Which light, Garda?"
He ignored my question.
He said: "Gimmie your licence."
I said: "Are you permitted to ask for my licence in that manner, Garda?"
He said: "You're supposed to have your documents on you at all times."
I handed him my licence saying: "I asked are you permitted to ask for my licence in that manner?"
He said: "Get out of the car."
He didn't say: "Please step out of the car, Sir."
Or: "Kindly step out of the car."
He said: "Get out of the car."
I was wearing a tee shirt.
I got out of the car.
The police officer compelled me to stand at the front of my car in the pouring rain in a tee shirt while he shouted: "You should know that light is gone."
He shouted this several times.
He said: "Come around here."
He led me around to the back of the car and once more compelled me to stand in a tee shirt in the rain while he indicated that one of the rear lights on my car was gone as well.
At this point another police officer came from the squad car at a run.
She was an over weight female police officer.
She went around to the passenger side of my car and retrieved something off the ground.
She approached me and handed me a photograph of a girl which had been stuck in my licence.
The over weight female officer said the words: "He didn't do that on purpose."
I looked at her pleadingly, indicating that I wanted her to stay.
She scuttled back to her vehicle.
She had no wish to be a witness.
The first police officer now began shouting questions at me.
He said in quick succession: "Who are you? Where are you from? How long have you owned the car?"
I answered some of his questions.
Then I said: "Why are you asking me these questions Garda?"
The police officer shouted: "I'm trying to ascertain if you've stolen the car."
I said: "I've given you my documents. I've told you my name. Why are you asking me these questions?"
The police officer turned away and stomped back towards his vehicle.
Half way there he called out: "You can get back in your car."
I got back in my car.
Ten minutes later the male police officer returned to the driver's side window of my car and handed my licence back to me.
The police officer said: "If you get that car into me at Naas station before 8 o'clock tomorrow evening, I won't summons you."
I was not clear what he meant by this statement or whether any of what he was doing was legal.
Apparently late on a Thursday evening he was giving me until the next day to get my car lights fixed.
I was not sure he should be giving such ultimatums.
In the past a police officer might say: "Get that light fixed."
That would be the end of the story.
Seemingly anything goes nowadays.
Nor was I sure whether by threatening to send me a summons he meant he would issue an on the spot fine, or compel me to appear in court.
Nor was I sure that anything he had been doing was in any way appropriate or justifiable.
It certainly didn't feel legal.
I said: "What's going on here Garda? Are my rights being protected? Can I be sent to jail for this?"
The police officer replied smirkily: "That depends on what attitude the judge takes."
I said: "What law are you threatening to summons me under?"
He bellowed: "Under the road traffic laws."
I said: "Are you entitled to behave this way?"
The police officer smirked again: "Maybe you'd like to ask your solicitor."
Solicitor is the Irish term for lawyer.
I said: "I'd prefer to ask you."
He began to turn away.
I said: "Am I not entitled to see your identity tag?"
Irish police are compelled by law to display numbered identity tags.
The Irish police trade union has found a way around this requirement. Its members habitually conceal their identity tags by wearing large high collared anoraks over their uniforms.
The police officer adjusted the collar of his anorak.
He snarled: "You can see my tag."
His identity tag remained invisible.
I said: "Am I not entitled to know your name?"
He snarled: "My name is blah, blah, blah."
Whatever he said for his name was not audible to me.
I wanted to ask him to repeat it but he was once more stomping away.
I said: "I'm not finished Garda."
The police officer shouted: "Well, I'm finished with you."
I drove home.
I got the car repaired the next day.
Of course I went nowhere near Naas Garda Station seeking this thug.
I never like to encourage thugs by doing what they tell me to do.
Whether they're wearing Garda uniforms or not.
It only confuses them.
A few days before Christmas a police car pulled up to my house.
"Who's that for?" wondered the Dad.
"That will be for me," I murmured wryly.
"Oh God," said the Da.
"Will I let him in?" I asked.
"Of course you'll let him in," gasped the Dad with no little exasperation.
The car was driven by an elderly Kilcullen police officer.
Somewhat sheepishly he handed me a summons from the Director of Public Prosecutions to appear in Naas District court in February.
The older police officer said: "You must have been speeding."
I said drily: "No, I wasn't speeding."
The older police officer retreated, still somewhat sheepishly.
I don't give him any credit for it.
They're always less thuggish when they fear there might be witnesses to their casual improprieties.
I watched his car drive away.
Across the road from where I live, a Dublin crime baron has a house.
Further up Kilcullen main street, a drug dealer uses his home to deal drugs to childen.
On the approach road to Kilcullen yet another crime baron has built a house, right beside a Garda's house.
The Garda's house is itself built on land belonging to an elderly relative of mine who lives in vulnerable circumstances.
There has been deep disquiet within our family as to how a Garda came to build his house on our relative's land.
House, house, house, house.
Never in all my time living in Kilcullen, have I seen a Garda squad car pull up to any of these houses.
But just before Christmas a Garda squad car pulled up to my house.
Seriously though.
They're doing a brilliant job.
I looked at the summons.
It had been issued by the Deputy of Public Prosecutions.
It listed me for a court appearance in Naas District Court in the new year.
There was a charge listed for the front light and for the rear light being inoperative on my vehicle.
Awight Guvnor.
Cor blimey.
E got me.
I ask you gentle readers.
Are these people clowns?
Or are they something worse?
The name of the thug police officer who had forced me to stand in the downpour in a tee shirt, thrown my photograph on the ground, and refused to answer any of my questions, was written on the summons as Sergeant James D O'Meara of Naas.
What a brilliant fellow.
Such courage.
Such integrity.
What does the D stand for I wonder?
Presumably dipshit.
Sergeant James Dipshit O'Meara.
Or possibly Sergeant James Dickhead O'Meara.
Both seem to fit.
So let's get this straight.
The Deputy of Public Prosecutions took a year and a half to announce that he wasn't going to take any action in the case of a Garda who accessed child pornography from computers at Garda head quarters. Nine years later he has still not revised that decision or indeed taken any action in that most grievous case.
The Deputy of Public Prosecutions has failed to take any action to bring to justice members of a devil worship ring which killed two babies in Dalkey during the mid 1970's on foot of their satanic child abuse rituals and whose members identities are known to the police and include three police officers.
The Deputy of Public Prosecutions has for decades simply refused to take any action at all to convict two time murderer Malcolm MacArthur of his second murder, MacArthur being a very strange murderer indeed having been captured in a Flat owned by the Attorney General, chief legal adviser to the government of now deceased Fianna Fail Prime Minister Charlie Haughey. I think we'd all like to see a trial in that case. When a person is murdered, they and their family and the community as a whole, are entitled to see justice done and to see inexplicable presences of murderers in Attorney Generals flats explained. The rights of Fianna Fail, and the Attorney General, and murderer Malcolm MacArthur are generally speaking of less importance to us.
So the Deputy of Public Prosecutions has for thirty years refused to do anything in these cases.
But when the great crime fighter Sergeant James Dirtbag O'Meara sought a summons on 23rd November 2009 against me for a front and rear broken car light, the Deputy of Public Prosecutions leapt to his feet, and within seven days had issued a summons to me to appear in court.
Marvellous work by the Deputy of Public Prosecutions.
This is apparently what we pay him half a million a year for.
And three thousand quid a week to Sergeant James Doltish O'Meara.
F--k me pink.
It only took the Doughnut eating twit cops of Kilcullen another two weeks to actually serve the summons.
But never mind that.
You gotta be tough on crime.
And tough on the causes of crime.
You gotta scare the kingpins in their lairs.
Isn't that right boys?
Gotta get it as close to Christmas as you can.
That will teach those James Healy types to allow lights to break on their cars.
You worthless three thousand quid a week clypes.
I stood in the hall looking at the summons.
A wry thought struck me.
I'd had another encounter with the police a few days after Sergeant James Dreadfullyincompetent O'Meara's magnificent display of heroism.
In the town of Newbridge, returning from church, I'd been stopped at a random check point and breathalysed.
The breathalyser is a little machine that you breathe into.
Some of the Irish cops don't think they should have to take breathalyser samples from the public.
The way they register their protest is by trying to force members of the public to dispose of their breathalyser equipment after use.
So it had transpired in Newbridge.
A baby faced cop breathalysed me and then without announcing the fact that I'd been clear of alcohol, instructed me to hold the breathalyser device.
His next action would have been to pull away and leave the device in my hands.
I said to him: "I don't want that."
Garda Baby Face Finlayson replied: "Neither to I."
I said: "Do I have to take it?"
Baby Face Finlayson shook his head.
"No," he said. "But gimmie your licence and produce the rest of your documents in a police station of your choice within the next ten days or I'll summons you."
I looked at him long and hard.
I said: "Why are you telling me to produce my documents in a police station. I have them all here."
Baby Face Finlayson shrugged: "Oh I've told ten people to produce their documents already tonight."
Of course gentle readers of the internet, the only reason this baby faced Garda scruff asked for my licence and then told me to produce documents at a station, was to deliberately inconvenience me for daring to refuse to dispose of his breathalyser equipment for him.
That's the sort of skanks we're dealing with.
Of course I never produced my documents anywhere.
And now weeks later, I'm in the hall of my house clutching a summons from the legendary Sergeant James Diplodochus O'Meara, and thinking rather rumly, that I may be shortly about to receive another summons from Garda Baby Face Finlayson.
A further rum thought struck me.
A week after my fateful meeting with Baby Face, I'd refused to pay an improperly imposed fine from the Eflow toll company which operates the automatic toll system on the motorway to Dublin airport.
I'd paid my toll but Eflow's automated system had only deducted half what it should have.
A few days later I received an Eflow late payment fine in the post amounting to 50 Euro.
I'd rung Eflow whose debt collection service is operated in high pressure style by a bookmaking company.
You couldn't make it up.
A debt collecting girl called Elizabeth had used typical debt collectors tactics over the phone, at first attempting to bamboozle me with pure nonsense about how I'd paid the wrong amount, then switching to page two of the Debt Collectors' Manual, accusing me of interrupting her, and cutting me off.
Of course I hadn't paid the improperly imposed fine.
That could be summons number three.
The new year hadn't even dawned yet, and already I was looking at three possible court appearances.
I recalled briefly how Eflow debt collectors had recently threatened a friend of mine who is a widow, (the widow of a Garda, hey, I didn't say she was perfect), threatened her with jail I say.
Bloody hell.
I stood in the hall with my summons.
A final rum thought, even rummier than the ones before, struck me.
Naas District Court is often presided over by a character styling himself Judge Desmond Zaidan.
The name has a vaguely Islamic ring.
Am I about to appear in the District Court before an Islamic Judge?
Will I be answerable to the laws of the Republic of Ireland or to Sharia Law?
I mean in Irish law traditionally a broken car light hasn't even necessitated a court appearance.
But in parts of the Muslim world, a broken tail light may be a treasonable offence.
Right up there with allowing girls to go to school or flushing Qurans down the jaxie.
I sure as hell hope he's not a regular reader of the Heelers Diaries.
My God, he might throw the book at me.
Not just any book either.
He might throw The Osama Bin Laden Do It Yourself Guide To Imposing Sharia Law On Infidels.
Yoikes, as we do say in the broken car light criminal trade.
The idea of a parody of my appearance before a Muslim Judge tugs at my consciousness with vague whimsicality.
A Muslim Judge.
Imagine if it was a televised courtroom.
Like Judge Judy.
Only this one would be called Judge Jihadi.
The coolo American voiceover introducing the show would begin: "James Healy was a journalist. And a good one. But he was framed for incompetence by other journalists, turned bad. Journalists who inserted twee misspellings in his humour column, and set James up to take the fall. Now he patrols the badlands. An outlaw hunting other outlaws. A warrior. A loner. A renegade. (Queue coolo theme music from the television series Renegade, and film of Lorenzo Lamas playing me riding out of the sun on a motorcycle with his long locks streaming behind him and a gold medallion glinting on his chest.) Oops sorry. Wrong parody. Er. I mean. James Healy was a journalist. But not a very good one. He lost his job at the Leinster Leader after that newspaper was taken over by British spiv company the Johnston Press. Now James has hit the skids, becoming a career criminal and regularly driving with broken lights on his car. His luck ran out however when he encountered ace crime fighter Sergeant James Dipstick O'Meara. Now James Healy must face his accuser and Judge Jihadi in The People's Court."
Ah.
Thank heavens for the gift of laughter.
I stood alone in the hall with my summons.
I was inclined to look for a way to get out of it.
Couldn't I just fail to turn up or leave the country or something.
The ghost of Maggie Thatcher appeared in full pantomime regalia clutching a magic wand.
"You shall go to the District Court Heelers," she proclaimed knocking me on the head with her magic wand and giving me a root in the bawls.
I will too.
At 2pm on 17th February 2010.
I hope to see you all there.
Perhaps a few of my old colleagues from the now defunct Leinster Leader will show up.
It would be fun to see some friendly faces.
Arf arf.
National media groups who spy on this blog may toddle along also.
And some of the Garda half wits who've been logging on regularly to read about themselves.
And maybe even a few Jihadis.
You will all be very welcome.
I assure you, I will do my utmost to keep you entertained.