Garda chief feared he was being set up

A GARDA superintendent refused to handle a notebook seized by his own officers because he feared he was being set up, the Morris Tribunal heard yesterday.

Superintendent Kevin Lennon was offered the notebook in September 1997, after it had been found in the house of a garda informer, William Doherty.

The notebook belonged to another member of the Donegal Division, Garda John O'Dowd.

Superintendent Lennon refused to handle the notebook, saying: "You'll not endeavour to put my fingerprints on it."

He told this several days later to Detective Garda Joseph Foley, who was part of the new investigation into the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron in Raphoe, Co Donegal, in 1996.

Mr Foley told the tribunal that Supt Lennon had been angry and dismayed about some of the questions put to Mr Doherty during his garda interview.

Mr Doherty had been asked about phone calls he made to Supt Lennon and Garda John O'Dowd and if he thought Supt Lennon was a liar.

In a tense meeting a day after the interview, Supt Lennon asked Mr Foley for the hand-written interview notes he had taken. He also confronted the garda in charge of the interview, Detective Inspector McGinley.

"I felt it wasn't part of my business so I left the room. I felt the atmosphere was fairly tense," said Mr Foley. Supt Lennon later told

Mr Foley that he suspected he was being set up by other gardaí.

"He had his suspicions and voiced them to me that the notebook had been planted," said Mr Foley.

Mr Foley later told Supt Lennon that he had been on the original mission to arrest Mr Doherty on September 20, 1997. Mr Doherty was not present at his home when he and the others arrived at 7am.

He was arrested later but Mr Foley was not notified of this.

"As a result of conversations with Supt Lennon, I thought it was strange. I felt I should have been on it but I wasn't," he said.

He said he had no recollection of Supt Lennon handing back the notes he had requested and that he did not know who had typed them up.

He was unable to explain to tribunal barrister

Anthony Barr why there were several major discrepancies between his hand-written notes and the typed version.

Mr Doherty had been arrested that morning for questioning about abusive phone calls he had allegedly made to two Donegal families in Raphoe, the Peoples and the McBreartys.

Mr Foley said it was an alien situation for him and that he had never experienced a superior officer asking questions about another superior. "I didn't know where it was coming from," he said.