Garda ‘admitted he knew arrest was wrong’

A GARDA who arrested a man over the planting of an explosive device at a telecoms mast admitted during the arrest that he knew the man was innocent, the Morris Tribunal has heard.

Geraldine Shovlin, the wife of plasterer Bernard Shovlin, who was arrested at Ardara, Co Donegal on November 20, 1996, said Garda John Dooley revealed he knew he should not be at the Shovlin's home to arrest him.

"The first thing they said to me going down the hall was 'we are here and we know we shouldn't be here. We know Barney had nothing to do with it'," Mrs Shovlin said of her conversation with Garda Dooley.