Former detective's testimony likened to spy novel
A former detective sergeant described a secret meeting between gardaí over a witness’s past as if it was something from a John Le Carre novel, the Morris Tribunal chairman said today.
Det Sgt John White told Judge Frederick Morris he had been summoned to the meeting to discuss discrepancies in the list of convictions of Bernard Conlon in a car park in Donegal town in September 1999.
Questions had been raised in Letterkenny District Court over omissions in the conviction list supplied by Sligo gardaí for Mr Conlon, who was giving evidence in a licensing prosecution against the McBrearty family.
Det Sgt White told the tribunal into garda corruption in Donegal he had been asked to call detective sergeant Gerard Connolly on a public payphone three quarters of a mile from his house.
He had then met the detective and another Sligo detective garda, John McHale, in the car park after they had flashed their headlights at him to signal they were there.
He said the two gardaí – who were sitting in the front of the car while he got into the back - had asked him about whether he had talked to Mr Conlon, and whether the witness had mentioned them.
“I got the feeling there was something between them in the front that I wasn’t party to. I asked him three or four times ’Why am I here?’ ” he said.
He told the tribunal there was unusual eye contact between the two officers in the front seat and that he was told to keep the meeting secret which he shouldn’t claim overtime expenses for.
Mr Justice Morris said Det Sgt White was painting a picture of a furtive garda meeting which suggested underhand dealings with the witness Bernard Conlon.
The chairman said: “You’re building this up into some sort of really cloak and dagger thing, ringing you on the public phone, instead of a call that could be traced.
“Did anything happen at that meeting that couldn’t have been said on a public telephone?”
Det Sgt White replied: “No chairman, it definitely didn’t.”
“It’s all very sinister and the sort of thing you see in the movies,” the chairman said.
It was put to Det Gda White that he was suggesting the other two gardaí had an improper association with Bernard Conlon, of which they were ashamed.
The chairman asked him if he believed the two other gardaí were up to no good.
The former garda replied that up to no good was a strong phrase, but he believed the meeting was unnecessary but he was put under pressure to go and he thought there was something going on he wasn’t party to.
“It just can’t be as simple as the list of previous convictions.
“I don’t know, chairman, what they were up to,” he added.
When it was put to him that he should not have left out his concerns over this meeting in a written statement, as it would have been considered significant, he said he had typed it out quickly.
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