A garda based at Dublin's Mountjoy station has been summoned to appear in court to answer charges of assault and criminal damage during a pub riot last year.

The garda was one of several officers called to the Cat and Cage pub in Drumcondra, north Dublin, on 28 June 2008. Following the escalation of a row at the pub, a patron was filming the scene on his mobile phone while gardaí were attempting to bring it under control.

One garda noticed this and forcibly took the phone from the individual's hands and deleted the footage of the violence. A complaint to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) about what happened followed, which led to an investigation and the garda has now been summoned to appear in court to answer charges of assault and criminal damage.

He is due to appear in the district court on 6 October. There is considerable anger among gardaí about the summons.

The GSOC is an independent body that investigates complaints against members of the force by the public and attends crime scenes where gardaí use firearms or where someone loses their life in a garda pursuit or investigation.

It came into operation in May 2007 and replaced the Garda Complaints Board, which was not independent of the force.

Recent behind-the-scenes talks between gardaí and the garda ombudsman have taken place amid hopes that a new era of "respect and understanding" will now begin.

The relationship between the ombudsman's office and the gardaí has been turbulent. However, the Sunday Tribune understands a recent meeting between garda representatives and members of GSOC to discuss their "differences" resulted in a "positive conversation and hopefully a new understanding," according to a garda source.

There have been several public spats between the two groups. Last year, Michael O'Boyce, president of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), claimed at its annual conference that the GSOC had "excelled itself in its blundering incompetence".

In particular, O'Boyce criticised the ombudsman's office over the search of a garda's locker in Roxboro Road station, Limerick, during which evidence was alleged­ly damaged.

At the time, a GSOC spokes­man said, "I'm amused by Michael O'Boyce's comments. I think it sets a very unfortunate tone for his tenure as president of the GRA.

"Michael knows full well that neither he nor I are, for legal reasons, able to discuss ongoing criminal investigations in any kind of detail in public. To suggest that evidence was tampered with in a manner that wasn't appropriate is not appropriate in my opinion," he said.