Aggressive interview techniques widely used, tribunal told

INTERVIEW techniques used to threaten two Donegal sisters were widely used by gardaí for serious crime investigations, the Morris Tribunal heard yesterday.

Detective Sergeant John White, who has admitted subjecting the two innocent women to a terrifying ordeal in Letterkenny Garda station in 1996, said he had seen the same techniques used by other detectives.

“The methods employed would be done for years and years. In difficult situations, where we thought people were lying, but only in an effort to get to the truth,” he said.

The Morris Tribunal has heard how Sergeant White and two other gardaí threatened Roisín McConnell and Katrina Brolly with long jail sentences, used foul and insulting language, showed graphic photos of a dead body, threw a chair across the room, flicked lights on and off and promised to have their children taken away by social services.

Det Sgt White, who is currently suspended from the force, spoke of his mounting frustration at the women’s failure to provide any information relating to the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron.

“These were ordinary people from a small village and none of them were breaking or telling us the truth,” he said.

Gardaí wanted to find out information about the whereabouts of Ms McConnell’s husband Mark on the night of the death, because they wrongly suspected him of involvement.

Sgt White said he had never received any specific training to interview suspects but had picked up his knowledge while working with the murder squad in Dublin in the 1980s.

He told the tribunal how senior garda officers would raise questions if there was no noise coming from the interview room.

“I was asked: ‘Were you reading the paper in that room?’ Quiet interviews were not proper.”

Senior counsel Paul McDermott, representing the tribunal, asked if these aggressive interview techniques were condoned by garda management.

“It would be acceptable to some senior officers. Especially to people who served in the detective branch, they would not frown on it and there would be no question of you being disciplined,” said Sgt White.

He said the focus in the gardaí had always been about getting results and filling in C2s, the form used to show a crime had been solved.

“When the custody regulations came in 1984, nobody ever told me you have to change your habits.”

Sgt White said the techniques had only been employed for interviews with people suspected of serious crimes and murder, not burglaries and larcenies.

He re-iterated his apology for his actions during the interview with Ms McConnell and Ms Brolly on December 4, 1996, and admitted that he had breached garda regulations for the treatment of people in custody.

Meanwhile, Judge Frederick Morris ordered the start of a preliminary investigation into the making of anonymous phone calls to two politicians.