Man presented gardaí with wheel rim from scene of disputed road death

THE man responsible for clearing litter from the streets of Raphoe, County Donegal, yesterday recalled how he found a broken wheel-trim near the scene of a disputed road death at the centre of a garda corruption probe.

The discovery was made by Martin Laird, soon after the mystery roadside death of local cattle dealer and farmer Richie Barron nearly seven years ago. Mr Laird told the Morris Tribunal (currently sitting in Donegal Town) he had collected the car part and handed it over to the gardaí, together with a bag of clothing he had also found, “as a respectable citizen, trying to help in a case where a man had been killed”.

He said that, on the morning after the Barron death, he had seen Mark McConnell, one of two men regarded by gardaí as suspects for a possible murder, leaving a bar in Raphoe. The sighting, he said, happened at a time when Mr O’Connell subsequently claimed he was still at his home. He stressed, that he had attached no importance to seeing Mr McConnell, whom he knew well as a neighbour, adding: “I never thought it could be in any way significant.”

Mr McConnell’s lawyer, Martin Giblin, suggested to Mr Laird that the Barron death, and its link with possible murder, could have been as memorable as the death of President Kennedy, in that he might remember all the details of his own movements on the day it happened. Mr Laird responded: “Bringing President Kennedy into this is not relevant.”

Another witness, Damien McDaid, said he could remember nothing about the Barron death, because he had been drinking all that day. In an outburst, he said: “I lost my work, I lost my wife, I lost my two wee ones over this. I was in the barracks and two boys put a handgun in my mouth. I was told to say I saw the boys hitting Richie Barron. I didn’t see that.”

The tribunal, chaired by former High Court president Mr Justice Frederick Morris is looking into allegations centring on the garda investigation of the Barron death and a number of other incidents of alleged improper garda activities in County Donegal during the 1990s.

Initially, Mr Barron was thought by police to have died as the result of a hit-and-run accident. Later, detectives initiated a murder investigation, a development that prompted the unfolding of events that helped lead to the establishment of the tribunal.

There were allegations that cousins Frank McBrearty Junior and Mr McConnell (regarded as prime suspects by detectives), together with their extended family, came in for “gross harassment” and mistreatment from the gardaí, and civil court cases are being pursued about those claims.

Nobody has been charged in connection with the death of Mr Barron. His inquest produced an open verdict.