Tribunal told of detective's notes 'threat'
A detective sergeant threatened his Garda interviewers that he had notes and tapes of his conversations with senior officers in Donegal, the Morris Tribunal heard today.
John White made the comment as he walked out the door of the interview room in Letterkenny Garda Station on St Patrick’s Day in 2000.
Chief Superintedent Joseph McGarty, who was in charge of the interview, said the comment came out of the blue.
“He said: ‘I have tapes and notes of conversations with senior officers (to Inspector Tadhg Foley). There is no need to go searching my house, everything is with my solicitor’.”
Judge Frederick Morris asked Mr McGarty if he had taken any action against him.
“Does it not have all the hallmarks of a threat? If you blow the whistle on me, I have things I can say about other officers?”
Mr McGarty replied: “It was a form of threat but I didn’t ask him. I didn’t pursue it any further.”
Mr McGarty was part of the Carty team, the internal Garda inquiry that was investigating Sergeant White’s involvement with a witness who falsely claimed that members of the McBrearty family had issued death threats against him.
Mr McGarty said he believed Sergeant White had made the statement to throw the Carty team off track in their investigation.
“It was as if he was trying to cast aspersions on other senior officers. What he meant by it chairman I don’t know, other than he was trying to put us off on a different line of investigation.”
The tribunal heard that he had asked to speak to his solicitor, Paudge Dorrian, and then told officers he had been advised not to say anything during the interview.
A further interview three days later, on March 20, 2000, produced little progress. Mr Dorrian was told he would not be allowed to sit in and terminated the interview.
Sergeant White was later charged with perverting the course of justice and making false statements.
He was acquitted in Letterkenny Circuit Court in January but remains suspended from the force.
The 50-year-old native of Bansha, Co Tipperary has revealed he suffers from depression and is seeing a psychiatrist.
The Morris Tribunal is due to take closing submissions on the Silver Bullet module on Friday.
It will then begin the next module, which will look at the Garda investigation into an arson attack on a telecommunications mast at Ardara, County Donegal in 1996.
