Raiders armed with knives threatened to chop off a woman’s fingers in front of her son and told her they would do the same to the boy during a traumatic burglary, a court has heard.

SUSPENDED garda John White planted a shotgun at a Travellers’ site in Donegal and then invented a conspiracy theory that garda bosses were out to frame him, the Morris Tribunal concluded.

A suspended detective Garda sergeant, who is credited with thwarting a string of Real IRA terror attacks, was today cleared of planting a shotgun at a traveller encampment in Donegal in a bid to frame a group of men for murder.