Garda fabricated 'murder confession', tribunal told
A senior garda who was involved in the early investigation into Raphoe cattle dealer Richie Barron’s death was today accused of fabricating an alleged confession to murder.
Frank McBrearty jnr told Supt John McGinley that there were several similarities between the scenario in his alleged confession to the murder of Mr Barron and questions the Gardaí had put to another witness.
“I’m accusing you of fabricating that statement against me, and you got the four boys from Dublin to help you do it,” Mr McBrearty jnr said.
He told the tribunal that there were nine points of comparison between his alleged confession, when he was arrested on December 4, 1996, and questions which the superintendent put to Roisin McConnell several hours earlier.
“The only explanation to a logical person is that you created it. Because it’s your scenario and nobody else’s.” Mr McBrearty, who has always denied making a confession, said. “You created the statement.”
However, Supt McGinley denied he had any involvement with the alleged confession.
The superintendent said that the scenario which he put to Mrs McConnell about Mr McBrearty jnr and her husband Mark’s movements on the night of the incident was not particular to him.
“That was what everybody who was involved in the investigation up to that point in time believed,” Supt McGinley said.
He told the tribunal his "question and answer session" with Mrs McConnell would have been available to the four gardai from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation who interviewed Mr McBrearty and extracted the alleged confession.
Ms Sean Quinn, who represents the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, said the phrases which appeared in the alleged confession and the questions put to Mrs McConnell would appear to be ‘common’.
The superintendent under cross-examination by Peter Charleton, counsel for the tribunal, said he believed he was as objective and open as possible during the investigation.
“I accept now chairman that clearly there was a subcurrent or undercurrent, there where a number of people were undoubtedly putting false information into the system in relation to Mr McBrearty,” Supt McGinley, who was an inspector at the time of the investigation, said.
Supt McGinley said that the investigation had not followed a ‘Veronica Guerin’ type strategy of arresting peripheral people to see what they know about the murder.
Mr Charleton said that five people including, a witness who was later considered integral to the investigation, Robert Noel McBride, were arrested for petty crimes on November 29, 1996.
“It certainly had nothing to do with a Veronica Guerin strategy,” Supt McGinley said.
“Are you seriously saying that these arrests weren’t done on context of the strategy of bringing in people who might know about things. Arresting them on crimes and trying to get them in custody where they might be more amenable to telling what was thought to be the truth?” Mr Charleton said.
Supt McGinley, who finished giving evidence today, said: “Sgt (Joe) Hannigan had mentioned that these people in Raphoe who were committing local crime that he wanted time out to arrest them and he was given permission by Supt (John) Fitzgerald to do that.”
The five people arrested for petty crimes also included the last person to see Mr Barron, a man who was in the town that night and another who was mentioned in investigation interviews.
Later, the superintendent said that former-Supt Kevin Lennon and Sgt John White had never said the investigation was after the wrong people nor had they put forward any view contrary to Mr Barron’s death being a murder.
