McBrearty to continue High Court action
A man framed for a murder that never was today dismissed Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s decision not to contest his High Court action for harassment by Co Donegal gardaí.
Mr McDowell also said last night that ministers in the Rainbow Coalition government in the mid-1990s should apologise to Frank McBrearty and his family over the botched investigation of Richie Barron’s death.
The 1996 incident was first investigated as a murder but later reclassified as a fatal hit-and-run, which still remains unsolved.
Last week’s second Morris Tribunal report said that Mr McBrearty and his cousin Mark McConnell were framed by gardaí for the murder of the Raphoe cattle dealer.
Mr McBrearty, 36, said today he was proceeding with his June 21 High Court action to sue the State, on several grounds, including wrongful arrest, being assaulted in custody and loss of earnings.
Rejecting Mr McDowell’s comments, he said: “I’m not welcoming anything from Michael McDowell. He knows that my family can expose what the Tribunal didn’t expose, and deliberately didn’t expose.”
Mr McDowell said earlier: “In the context of the forthcoming claim by Frank McBrearty to the High Court, it is my intention to amend the pleadings in the case to concede liability.”
Mr McBrearty said he had to pay the costs of up to 60 witnesses since he filed his High Court application in 1997.
Up to 40 members of the extended McBrearty family could also seek compensation from the State for stress due to garda intimidation, sources said today.
Mr McBrearty explained: “I’ve had to pay for every witness I subpoenaed. I had to give them €100 each – up to 60 witnesses. I’ve had to pay for the pathologist to come from England.
“I haven’t worked for nearly nine years. My health is severely damaged over this. I’m 36 years of age and I suffer from severe blood pressure.”
He also accused Mr McDowell of trying to undermine his legal team at the Morris Tribunal, and called for an international taskforce to investigate previous alleged cases of false confessions in garda custody.
“What my family has done for this country has opened the door for all other innocent people.
“I’m calling on the Government to set up an international taskforce to come in and investigate all these cases where false statements of confession were taken over the last 30 years.
“That’s not good enough. Those two gardai should be sacked. The person who is making them retire – [Garda Commissioner] Noel Conroy – should go along with them.”
Mr McDowell said earlier: “On behalf of successive Ministers of Justice, particularly members of government who were in office at the time when all of these things happened … I think that the State does owe them an apology. I have no doubt about that.”
The Rainbow Coalition of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left was in power at the time, from 1994-1997.
Superintendent Joseph Shelly and Detective Superintendent John McGinley will resign at the end of next month after they were heavily criticised in last week’s Morris report.
Judge Frederick Morris, who headed the Tribunal, found the investigation was “prejudiced, tendentious and utterly negligent in the highest degree“.
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