Senior garda denies using false statement to force confession

A RETIRED detective superintendent yesterday branded as ridiculous the suggestion a false statement had been used as a catalyst in the hope of getting a man to confess to murder.

John McGinley told the Morris Tribunal he was not involved in the forging of a statement in a bid to frame somebody for Richie Barron’s death.

Garda Tina Fowley has claimed that while suspects, including Frank McBrearty Jnr, were being questioned she saw then Det Insp John McGinley appear to copy Mr McBrearty’s signature.

Gda Fowley later made her allegation to the Carty team that she had seen Det Insp McGinley practicing the signature and believed he had forged a signature on a murder confession.

Both Mr McBrearty and his cousin Mark McConnell were being detained on suspicion of murder on December 4, 1996.

Mr McBrearty denies signing a confession to the murder of cattle dealer Richie Barron which detectives say he made the same evening, shortly before his release from custody. It was later ruled that Mr Barron was the victim of a hit-and-run, not assault.

Mr McConnell claims that he was shown a four-page false confession signed by his co-accused admitting their involvement in the killing.

Under cross-examination by counsel for Gda Tina Fowley, Mr McGinley said he could not reconcile the use of a false statement in any form, as a tactic, a ruse or anything else.

Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris said: “Well would you like to answer that — whereas you would run 100 miles from forging a statement, you mightn’t be averse to putting up a phoney statement as a catalyst to get this man to confess?”

Mr McGinley said: “Absolutely not chairman, I think it is ridiculous to think that it has been suggested that five or six members would go in to Mr McConnell before he was released with five or six pages of a statement, or whatever it was, in the hope that he would confess.”

He added: “What we were going to do then I don’t know and Gda (Martin) Leonard hovering outside the door.

“I can’t reconcile it in any shape or form, as a tactic or as a ruse or anything else.”

Gda Fowley’s counsel queried: “Have you any other explanation for what you could have been doing in writing a signature of Frank McBrearty Jnr and saying, ‘Isn’t that a good likeness?’”

Mr McGinley replied: “I told him chairman that I didn’t do that.”

The Morris Tribunal, investigating garda corruption in Donegal, is currently hearing claims that some 12 people — many related to the McBrearty family — were interrogated, intimidated and abused during the botched death probe.