Sergeant stands trial on gun charges

A GARDA detective sergeant who helped foil a string of Real IRA terror attacks in the mid-1990s and a key player in the Morris Tribunal is to stand trial today for illegal possession of a gun.

John White is accused of planting a shotgun at a Traveller site outside Burnfoot on the Inishowen peninsula.

The 51-year-old suspended officer is due to appear before Donegal Circuit Court in Letterkenny.

The trial is expected to last three weeks and if it goes the full distance will be the longest criminal case ever heard in the county featuring over 70 witnesses.

The charge relates to a search of the Traveller camp in May 1998 after rumours circulated that a weapon used in a post office robbery was being hidden at the site. The tip-off was said to have come from a garda informer.

Four search warrants were secured and a team of officers raided the encampment and allegedly uncovered a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun and ammunition. Seven people were arrested following the operation.

At the time of the search, Sgt White was based in Raphoe and was helping to run the investigation into the mysterious death of cattle dealer Richie Barron in 1996.

His role in that has been probed by the Morris Tribunal and the Burnfoot incident was also examined during weeks of private hearings at the inquiry.

The three most recent reports compiled by Mr Justice Frederick Morris, one of which concerns Burnfoot, have not been published over fears that it may prejudice Sgt White’s trial.

Sgt White earned enormous respect from colleagues in An Garda Síochána in the mid-1990s over his handling of an important informer with links to dissident republicans and the Real IRA.

He was credited with passing on information that helped thwart a series of bomb attacks in Northern Ireland.

But he has also claimed his informer tipped him off that the Real IRA were planning a bombing, weeks before the market town of Omagh was devastated in the single worst terror atrocity to hit the North.

Sgt White said he passed on details about a car which was to be used in the attack to a senior garda officer but it was not conveyed to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

The North’s Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan has investigated the claim, passing her findings on to former Foreign Minister Brian Cowen.

The Government appointed a team to investigate his allegations which was headed by retired civil servant Dermot Nally.

In December 2003, Justice Minister Michael McDowell told the Dáil that the Nally Report had found no evidence to support any of the claims, though it has never been published.