Probe ‘plagued by false statements’

QUESTIONS should have been raised over the reliability and motivation of damning statements implicating a Raphoe publican in the death of a local cattle dealer, it was claimed last night.

The Morris Tribunal heard three pieces of vital information placing Frank McBrearty Jnr near the scene of Richie Barron’s death turned out to be “damp squibs.”

But it emerged officers probing the suspected hit-and-run failed to fully investigate whether informants were plying officers with malicious information or had simply made mistakes.

Superintendent John McGinley, a senior detective with more than 30 years’ experience, said officers should have spotted a series of discrepancies in evidence passed on by witnesses.

“Perhaps we should have,” the superintendent said. “It is a difficult question, chairman, because if the three pieces of information came in one after the other alarm bells might ring, but if they came in months apart they might get lost in the system,” he said.

Supt McGinley, a top detective in the Barron death probe and now based in Galway, refused to be drawn on what motivated informants.

He reiterated in all his time in the force he had never experienced an investigation that was plagued by so many false or misleading statements.

The tribunal was also told gardaí were ordered to go out and find witnesses to strengthen the informants’ stories.

Up to 20 statements failed to back up claims made by a key informant, Noel McBride alias Mr X, that Mr McBrearty Jnr and his cousin Mark McConnell were seen coming from the scene of the hit-and-run. Supt McGinley refuted claims that Mr X, was a “gormless, old devil.”