Waterford school teacher jailed for harassment against members of An Garda Síochána

Between May and September 2018, Lee Hutchinson, a former secondary school teacher sent handwritten anonymous letters containing spurious allegations about officers to their families, colleague and superiors including the then Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan. The claims in the letters were forwarded to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission whom deemed them “unfounded”.

A number of the letters and the envelopes were submitted to Forensic Science Ireland for DNA and handwriting analysis. A DNA profile matching Mr.Hutchinson’s DNA profile was obtained from one of the letters. The handwriting present in this letter, along with that of a number of the other anonymous letters and their envelopes, were compared to a specimen of handwriting from Lee Hutchinson by the Handwriting experts of FSI. Their findings offered “strong handwriting evidence” that Lee Hutchinson wrote these envelopes and letters. In November 2023 Mr. Hutchinson was sentenced to six years in prison, with one year suspended. He was also ordered not to contact any of the victims for 10 years.