Alleged garda brutality evidence not included in report, tribunal told
Evidence of alleged garda brutality during a botched murder investigation was not included in an official police report on the case, it emerged today.
A solicitor’s letter of complaint about the mistreatment of Frank McBrearty Jnr – wrongly accused of beating to death Donegal cattle dealer Richie Barron - had gone missing through negligence or nefarious reasons, it was claimed.
Lawyer James Sweeney wrote up the document after his client, Mr McBrearty, claimed officers physically abused him, called him an alcoholic wife-beater and “murdering bastard” during interrogation.
He was arrested on December 4, 1996, as a prime suspect for the murder of Mr Barron. The dead man was later found to have died in a hit-and-run car collision.
The Morris Tribunal discovered the letter passed on by gardaí to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) on the Barron case was different from the original.
Most of the serious allegations – including the use of a bogus confession from Mr McBrearty’s cousin to his role in the murder – were carried on the second page of the letter.
This was not included in the copy the tribunal obtained from the ’Lennon Report’, the official files on the case sent to the DPP in early 1998 by Supt Kevin Lennon.
Tribunal barrister Paul McDermott SC said: “It may be that it was inserted for that purpose and the real second page was removed for nefarious purposes. Or it may not be. It may be simply chaos or negligence of some kind.”
