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USA Today
7 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Rebels, gangsters and presidents animate biography of radical lawyer Paul O'Dwyer
Rebels, gangsters and presidents animate biography of radical lawyer Paul O'Dwyer 'An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O'Dwyer,' takes readers through the civil rights era, Northern Ireland, and post-war New York's machine politics. Show Caption Hide Caption Harvard Law School's Magna Carta revealed as an original Harvard Law School's Magna Carta revealed as an original, the school bought a 1327 copy of the Magna Carta from legal book dealer for $27.50 in 1946. Robert Polner and Michael Tubridy's biography of Paul O'Dwyer examines the clash between purity and pragmatism in public llife. The book includes cameos from presidents including JFK, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin Roosevelt. O'Dwyer spent decades fighting for civil rights and desegregation. His elder brother, New York Mayor William O'Dwyer, was dogged by unproven allegations of gangland ties. In the endless dogfight between purity and pragmatism it's never clear who to bet on. It's even harder to know who to love. Radical Irish-American lawyer Paul O'Dwyer was a passionate purist who spent most of the 20th Century fighting – and often winning – for society's losers. O'Dwyer stood up for Irish Republicans, the early Zionists, Blacks in the segregated South, Blacks in the segregated North, gays and lesbians during the AIDS crisis, Kentucky coal miners and, briefly, the entire population of Iran. His elder brother, William O'Dwyer, was the silver-tongued, machine-backed mayor of post-war New York who traveled by chauffeured car and got things done – until creeping scandal pushed him from office, all the way to Mexico City. The intensely loyal but often difficult relationship between these immigrant siblings is only the most attractive of several threads crackling through Robert Polner and Michael Tubridy's excellent biography, 'An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O'Dwyer' (available now from Three Hills Books). The clash of zealotry and conciliation, the question of how best to do the right thing, animates the O'Dwyer story in ways eerie and often striking. Sometimes tilting at windmills and at others slaying dragons, Paul O'Dwyer keeps popping up where the action is, wavy-haired, brogue-talking, and brave. It's 1967: O'Dwyer is in segregated Alligator, Mississippi, watching the local polls to help out civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer. It's 1968 and he's manhandled by Chicago cops while trying to save an anti-Vietnam war delegate from a beating at the riotous Democratic National Convention. There he is, sunburned in San Antonio, springing suspected Irish Republican Army sympathizers from federal lock-up. And here he is in 1993, whispering to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries that the time might be right for the U.S. to get off the sidelines and broker an end to decades of violence and repression in Northern Ireland. O'Dwyer, the youngest of 10, grew up in an impoverished hamlet in Ireland's County Mayo. After graduating from a Dickensian church-run school and completing a year of college – supported by the meager salaries of his schoolteacher sisters – he was summoned at age 17 to New York by his four brothers, who'd already escaped across the Atlantic. There he met Bill, who'd never laid eyes on the baby of the family. Bill was something: A seminary dropout, he'd worked as a barman, riverboat furnace-tender, and laborer before joining the NYPD and becoming a lawyer. He flashed a gold tooth. Unlike his younger brothers, he didn't send money home. He steered Paul into law school, and encouraged him to rise through the patronage and compromises of Tammany Hall – the city's ruling Democratic machine – though Paul chose more difficult means of ascent. Eldest and youngest formed a bond that would survive decades of friction over principles and tactics. Bill was elected district attorney of Brooklyn, where he prosecuted the button-men of Murder Inc., but he was stalked by allegations – never proven – of gangland ties that would later undo his mayoralty. Where Bill sent men to the electric chair, Paul defended accused killers bound for the death house. The contrast is even more striking when the book describes how their brother Frank O'Dwyer was himself shot dead in a hold-up, and his killer executed. Paul O'Dwyer didn't let zealotry fence off the road to common ground. Fiercely anti-British, he refused to condemn IRA violence, and also refused to condemn attacks on Catholics by Northern Ireland's Protestant paramilitaries, reasoning – despite his Catholic allegiance – that he couldn't pit one group of Irishmen against another. In the 1970s he caught hell for reaching out to the violent anti-Catholic bigot Andrew Tyrie, a man with plenty of blood on his hands, in search of a way to unite the poor of Belfast, Protestant and Catholic, against their shared poverty and unemployment in the British north. O'Dwyer influence and compromise While Bill O'Dwyer became mayor in 1945, the highest office Paul achieved was that of city council president, in 1973. He lost primary or general election races for mayor, Congress and the U.S. Senate. Friends and foes "painted Paul as more influential than he actually was" in his brother's administration, the authors write. In retirement, Bill said his younger brother "had little patience for me because of compromises that I may have made." "That's perhaps the difference between a successful politician and one who had to learn some things yet," he added. In a now-familiar swing of the pendulum, the man who defeated O'Dwyer in the 1968 Democratic primary for senator from liberal New York, in a year of riots and tumult, ultimately lost – not to a Republican, but to the Conservative party candidate. Fifty-six years later, at another moment of upheaval, a majority of New Yorkers pulled the lever for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election – but Donald Trump still won 30% of the city, the best GOP showing in three decades. As Polner and Tubridy write, O'Dwyer's life is 'relevant to understanding America's and the world's polarization in the twenty-first century.' Sense and sensibility Back to the brothers: Who to love? Bill O'Dwyer took the world as it was, made his deals, and built airports, housing, transit and sewers in America's biggest city. Paul O'Dwyer tried to make the world a better place, catching where he could those who walked life's high-wire without much of a net. He died in 1998, shortly after the Good Friday Agreement ended decades of open conflict in Northern Ireland. As Polner and Tubridy show, to make a go of things – in a story, a city, a republic – you ultimately need both characters, the pragmatist and the purist.
BBC News
30-04-2025
- BBC News
Paddleboard firm owner Nerys Lloyd was sacked as PC for fraud claim
A paddleboard firm boss, jailed after four people died in a river accident, was sacked from the police over a fraudulent insurance Lloyd, 39, from Aberavon, was jailed at Swansea Crown Court on 23 April for 10 years and six months after the tragedy on the River Cleddau in October the case has finished, South Wales Police has published details of a misconduct hearing for the former reveals she was sacked in November 2022 after claiming more than £500 from a car insurance scheme when the actual cost of repairs was around £20. Lloyd was jailed last week after admitting gross negligence manslaughter following the tragedy on the River Cleddau in October company Salty Dog had organised the excursion in which Paul O'Dwyer, Andrea Powell, Morgan Rogers and Nicola Wheatley drowned at a weir in Haverfordwest, had previously admitted gross negligence manslaughter and a health and safety the criminal case has concluded, the south Wales force has released previously unpublished details of an unrelated misconduct investigation into an insurance his findings, the Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan describes how Lloyd, who had served as a firearms officer, had made a fraudulent claim against the South Wales Police Federation motor insurance actual cost of a repair to her car was "in the region of £16 to £20" but she had claimed £ report says that when the matter came to light, Lloyd had admitted her wrongdoing and immediately apologised for her claim was reported to South Wales was interviewed under caution on 11 October 2021, two weeks before the tragedy on the river, on the made a full admission to the fraudulent claim and said she had made a "massive error of judgement". She repaid the money 19 October 2021, she had attended Ystrad Mynach Police Station, Caerphilly county, and accepted a formal caution for the criminal offence of fraud by false representation under the Fraud Act 2006. At the misconduct hearing in January 2022, the chief constable found the allegations of breaches professional standards were proved for honesty and integrity, bringing discredit on the police service and undermining the confidence of the Vaughan said it was entirely unacceptable for police officers, who are responsible for enforcing the law, to break the law concluded that she should be dismissed without the sentencing hearing last week it was disclosed that Lloyd had been suspended by South Wales Police when the tragedy the judge Mrs Justice Mary Stacey said the prior caution for fraud would not have any bearing on her sentencing decision.
South Wales Guardian
23-04-2025
- South Wales Guardian
Nerys Lloyd jailed for Haverfordwest paddleboarder deaths
Nerys Bethan Lloyd organised a stand-up paddleboarding tour on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest in October 2021 despite 'extremely hazardous conditions' and weather warnings in place. Lloyd failed to warn the group about a weir on the route or how to navigate it. The participants were swept over, with some becoming trapped under the fast-moving water. Paul O'Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, all died. Lloyd, 39, from Aberavon, south Wales, was the owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co Ltd, which organised the tour. Paul O'Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, died (Image: Dyfed-Powys Police) Lloyd, from Aberavon, was the owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co Ltd, which organised the tour. The prosecution, Mark Watson KC, told the court that Lloyd and Mr O'Dwyer, who helped act as an instructor, were 'not remotely qualified' and that the stretch of river had a 'real potential for danger.' David Elias KC, defending, quoted a statement written by Lloyd to the court on Wednesday. He said: "I take full blame (for the incident) that meant four extremely special individuals are not here today. "The pain for me has been unbearable but the pain for the families unmeasurable. "There were nine people on the river that day and every one of them is a victim." She admitted four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act in March. She was handed the jail sentence by Mrs Justice Dame Mary Stacey at Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday, April 23. She pleaded guilty to four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act in March, and was sentenced by Mrs Justice Dame Mary Stacey at Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday. Lloyd, a former firearms officer for South Wales Police, appeared in the dock wearing a white shirt and dark trousers. She stared straight ahead at the judge as her sentence was read out. Mrs Justice Stacey told the court that the four people who died had been 'cut off in their prime, with so much to live for and look forward to.' She told the defendant: 'There was no safety briefing beforehand. 'None of the participants had the right type of leash for their board, and you didn't have any next of kin details. 'No consent forms were obtained. There had been no mention to the group of a weir on the river and how to deal with it and no discussion of the tidal river conditions whatsoever.' The judge said there were Met Office weather warnings at that time, as well as a flood alert in place through Natural Resources Wales. She told Lloyd that she had watched CCTV footage of the incident, which she described as 'too distressing' to play in court. A conversation between Lloyd and her wife was inadvertently recorded on her phone hours after the incident. She could be heard saying she was 'finished' and the incident was '100%' her fault, but blamed Mr O'Dwyer in the aftermath of the incident. She also rejected the suggestion that the plan had been to go around the weir. 'It is clear to me that you intended for the group to go through the weir,' she said. 'Paul (O'Dwyer) had researched alternative routes that would avoid crossing the weir, all of which were dismissed by you. 'He raised valid concerns that you ignored. Your interest appeared to be more of an exciting route rather than safety.' The judge accused Lloyd of being 'lax' when it came to health and safety, despite her training as a police officer and as a volunteer for the RNLI. Handing Lloyd a 10-year and six-month sentence, the judge told Lloyd: 'I accept you are desperately sorry for what happened that day. 'Your life has also been massively impacted. But being sorry for what happened is different from remorse.' Lloyd showed no emotion as her sentence was read out, only nodding at the judge and mouthing 'thank you'. Mark Watson KC, for the prosecution, told the court on Tuesday that Lloyd and Mr O'Dwyer, who helped act as an instructor, were 'not remotely qualified' and that the stretch of river had a 'real potential for danger'. David Elias KC, for the defence, quoted a statement written by Lloyd to the court on Wednesday. He said: 'I take full blame (for the incident) that meant four extremely special individuals are not here today. 'The pain for me has been unbearable but the pain for the families unmeasurable. 'There were nine people on the river that day and every one of them is a victim.'
Western Telegraph
23-04-2025
- Western Telegraph
Nerys Lloyd jailed for Haverfordwest paddleboarder deaths
Nerys Bethan Lloyd, 39, organised the stand-up paddleboarding tour on the River Cleddau in October 2021, despite 'extremely hazardous conditions' and weather warnings. She failed to warn the group about a weir on the route or how to navigate it. The participants were swept over, with some becoming trapped under the fast-moving water. Paul O'Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, died. Paul O'Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, died (Image: Dyfed-Powys Police) Lloyd, from Aberavon, was the owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co Ltd, which organised the tour. The prosecution, Mark Watson KC, told the court that Lloyd and Mr O'Dwyer, who helped act as an instructor, were 'not remotely qualified' and that the stretch of river had a 'real potential for danger.' David Elias KC, defending, quoted a statement written by Lloyd to the court on Wednesday. He said: "I take full blame (for the incident) that meant four extremely special individuals are not here today. "The pain for me has been unbearable but the pain for the families unmeasurable. "There were nine people on the river that day and every one of them is a victim." She admitted four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act in March. She was handed the jail sentence by Mrs Justice Dame Mary Stacey at Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday, April 23.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Yahoo
Owner of paddleboarding company jailed over deaths of four people in Pembrokeshire
A woman has been jailed for 10 years and six months over the deaths of four paddleboarders in Wales. Nerys Bethan Lloyd - a former police officer - pleaded guilty last month to four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Paul O'Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, died after they got into difficulty in the River Cleddau, Pembrokeshire, on 30 October 2021. The four had been part of a stand-up paddleboarding tour when their paddleboards went over a weir in Haverfordwest, during "extremely hazardous conditions". The tour had been organised by Lloyd, owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co Ltd. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement that an expert had concluded the tour "should not have taken place". 'Extremely dangerous' Paddleboarding expert Andrew Gratwick said in his written evidence that he considered the weir to be "an extremely serious risk which should have been very obvious to any competent instructor". The court heard that neither the defendant nor Paul O'Dwyer had a "suitable qualification for this kind of activity" and that the "final decisions to take part" were hers. Prosecuting, Mark Watson KC, said he accepted Mr O'Dwyer "bears a share of the responsibility" but that the defendant was "primarily responsible for the needless loss of life". During periods of high water levels, Haverfordwest's weir "becomes extremely dangerous with high potential for loss of life", according to evidence submitted by the local kayak club's health and safety officer. One bystander, who had lived by the side of the River Cleddau for around 35 years said "he could not recall seeing the river ever flowing so strongly". "All seven participants had been completely taken by surprise by the presence of the weir and in a chaotic episode of some twenty seconds, they were all carried over the weir crest by the strong current," Mr Watson said. A voice message service on the day of the incident recorded Lloyd as having said "It's my fault 100% I probably shouldn't have gone on the water." In the back of the ambulance, she was overheard telling friends that she was "going to jail for this". Sentencing Lloyd at Swansea Crown Court on Wednesday, Mrs Justice Stacey told Lloyd that the weir presented an "obvious and extreme danger" and that she "showed a blatant disregard" for the risk of loss of life. "This was not a monetary lapse, your whole approach to health and safety was lax," she added. The judge said there were Met Office weather warnings at that time, as well as a flood alert in place through Natural Resources Wales. Mrs Justice Stacey said the footage of the incident was "too distressing to be shown in court". "Having studied it, I am sure that you made no attempt to investigate or paddle to the steps which were visible from the river." In her sentencing remarks, the judge paid tribute to the victims and their families. "We've heard such mobbing accounts form the family members of those who died. Statements, which I fear, barely scratch the surface," she said. This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version. You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
