Gang drove security out of repossessed bungalow
One of the guards told of a “most terrifying” incident last Saturday when a group of men broke down shuttering and doors on the house before driving out the security men with weapons.
The court granted an injunction preventing Patricia McLeish, who owned the bungalow at Coolisteague, Clonlara, Tulla, Co Clare, from interfering with the security company employed by Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank to repossess the house. The interim injunction also applies to her two sons Shane and Mark McLeish and any other persons with knowledge of the order.
The bank says Ms McLeish and her estranged husband Thomas failed to repay the morgage and a repossession order was first granted as far back as 2004.
Since then, there have been various legal proceedings and postponements of the execution of the possession order. The execution of the repossession was finally ordered this month when members of what the bank calls “self-professed anti-repossession groups” attended the circuit court hearing when the McLeishs’ final legal case was rejected.
The bank says matters turned “sour and ultimately violent” after the bailiffs obtained vacant possession on October 11 and personnel from Secure Management Solutions (SMS), a company appointed by the bank to secure the property, moved in.
John Moynihan, supervisor for the SMS security team sent in on October 14/15, said in an affidavit that when he arrived 15-20 people had gathered outside.
Mr Moynihan got inside without incident but said a colleague who had gone out to get hot water for tea had to get Garda protection to come back in.
There was some banging in the early hours on steel shuttering which had ben put up by the security company to protect the house, with sporadic shouting and name calling.
At around 3pm the next day, the crowd outside had begun to grow and about 15 adult males attempted to smash out internal doors using hammers, clubs, and bars, Mr Moynihan said.
He and his colleagues attempted to stop them breaking through an internal door into the sitting room, which the security people were in, but the men managed to break through. They included Shane McLeish who punched at the security men and struck them with clubs or bars, Mr Moynihan said.
The crowd poured through, shouting and jostling the security men, he said. “I barely managed to gather some of our belongings from the sitting room before we were pushed out the front door which the invading crowd had opened from the outside.”.
He said he and colleagues were assaulted outside.
Mr Moynihan has worked over 25 years in security.
“However, this was, without doubt, one of the most terrifying incidents to which I have been subjected,” he said.
Apart from the incident, several of his colleagues have been subjected to “vicious and threatening intimidation” on social media and their pictures and addresses have been published, he said. The messages include “where is the IRA” and refer to a non-national security guard as a “foreign c***”, and also make references to a female security guard as “the dirty blond c***”.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott ordered notices and papers of the injunction order be left at the nearest Garda station for Ms McLeish and her two sons to collect and for eight other copies be left at the property itself. The case returns to court next week.
