By Jean Christou
THE UNITED Nations Force in Cyprus (Unficyp) has terminated the ten-year employ of a British woman who complained she had been terrorised by a pistol-wielding Irish peacekeeper, who has since been sent home for stealing empty beer kegs.
Sarah Sharpe, 31, was told in December that she was losing her job as Social Sciences Assistant at the Civil Affairs Department, formerly the Humanitarian Branch, which was restructured on the orders of new Chief of Mission Dame Ann Hercus.
Sharpe, a locally-employed worker who speaks fluent Greek, was given the option of competing for another post, but says she was turned down for every job she applied for – even lower grade positions.
“Each one I applied for I was told I was unsuitable,” she said.
For the past ten years, Sharpe had acted as a UN go-between for the Greek Cypriot enclaved in the occupied areas and the Turkish Cypriots still living in the south.
She thinks she was initially given notice because of differences with her British boss.
But the reason she was not rehired within the force, she believes, was because she subsequently reported an Irish sergeant for pulling a gun on her in her own home. She also suspects him of having stolen things from her house, where he used to drop by uninvited.
According to Sharpe, on the night of January 7, Sergeant Eddie Hennessy waved a gun in her face at her Ayios Dhometios home in Nicosia, where she lives alone.
He suspected her of gossiping about his alleged involvement in a lucrative scam said to involve Irish peacekeepers selling duty free alcohol outside the UN, Sharpe said.
Hennessy, who is in his thirties, worked behind the bar at UN headquarters at Nicosia Airport.
“Things started coming out,” Sharpe said. “He started opening up after having drunk a lot in the bar and he started coming out with things about duty free. It started to become apparent that maybe this guy was actually involved in this. As soon as he started saying things like this I decided to pull away.”
A number of Irish peacekeepers have already been sent home for their suspected involvement in the duty free scam.
After the `confession’, Hennessy went on Christmas leave and Sharpe did not hear from him.
“Three weeks later, the phone rang. It was this guy and he kept saying `hello, hello’ as if he couldn’t hear me and this continued all evening,” Sharpe said.
The next day, he called again and asked her if he could come round to her house.
“When I opened the door to let him in I could see he didn’t seem to be in a very friendly mood. He started saying he’d heard I’d spoken to people about him selling duty free.”
Sharpe said she denied it, but Hennessy became “very nasty”. He then asked to use the bathroom.
“When he came back, I noticed a bulge in his jumper,” she said. “My immediate thought was `gosh this guy’s stolen something from me’. I asked him what he had under his jumper and he said `nothing’. I asked him again, at which point he produced a gun.”
Sharpe said Hennessy was standing directly in front of her and that she just froze, thinking it was a sick joke. She asked him if the gun was real, and he said it was.
“My thoughts were `stay calm, don’t do anything to upset him, get him out of the house, lock the door and call the police.’
“It sounds funny now, but at the time I just sort of said `look, if you’re going to do something, do it, whatever you came here to do because I really have to get ready to go out.’
“I was in such shock. It was like, `if you’re going to kill me do it now because I have to go out’.”
She said Hennessy then just “said something nasty” and walked out; she ran to lock the door, sat down and burst into tears.
Sharpe called a close friend and went to report the incident to UN police, spending the whole of the next day giving statements.
She said she was assured by the UN there was no need to report anything to Cyprus police, but was later told by contacts in the local force that she should have done exactly that.
For the next week, Sharpe said she lived in terror as UN investigators failed to find the gun, despite bringing sniffer dogs from Akrotiri. The dogs did indicate there had been a weapon in the boot of his car, but Hennessy was not taken into custody.
She said she wrote a letter to the head of UN military police on January 15 asking for protection.
“They couldn’t charge him with anything until they found the gun so he was still a free man,” she said.
On January 18, a UN letter to Sharpe said there was little they could do “of a practical nature” about her security, but that Hennessy would be leaving the island “very soon”.
“I didn’t sleep. Every night I’d sit there drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and thinking any noise outside might be him.”
Hennessy was indeed shipped home shortly afterwards and his files have been passed on to the Irish military, who will deal with the case.
UN spokesperson Sarah Russell said Hennessy’s return home had nothing to do either with the alleged gun incident or the theft allegations, or the duty-free scam. Russell said he had been sent home for medical reasons; no evidence had been found against him in relation to Sharpe’s allegations, though there were suspicions of petty theft.
UN sources told The Sunday Mail that Hennessy had in fact been sent home on disciplinary charges for stealing empty beer kegs on which he was claiming deposits and pocketing the cash.
“The guy is no longer here,” one source said. “He was sent home for `depression’.”
But Sharpe is now out of a job since Friday, and has not even received an apology from the UN for what she has been through.
“It was the opposite. It was like `oh look here’s trouble’,” she said. “They (the UN) don’t like it if you stand up for yourself and it causes a big stir. Everyone is terrified of losing their job because they’ve seen what happens to people like me. See how easy it is? Someone clicks their fingers and you’re out.”
Sharpe will now appeal against her dismissal to UN headquarters in New York in accordance with procedure. If that fails, she will apply for compensation from the UN. She may even consider legal action, she said.
“It was very stressful and really unfair. I’m out of a job. It’s all been such a shock.”
