Witness grilled about Garda corruption claims

Sheenagh McMahon, who has rocked the Morris Tribunal with allegations about a garda-permitted IRA bomb in Northern Ireland, faced persistent cross-examination at today’s session of the probe into garda corruption.

Mrs McMahon, whose estranged detective husband Noel is one of the garda figures most prominently featuring in her claims, was quizzed in detail about the background to evidence she gave yesterday that focused on a bomb attack on Strabane, Co Tyrone, a decade ago.

The 42-year-old dark-haired mother of three, maintained that Noel and currently-suspended Garda Superintendent Kevin Lennon had permitted IRA informer Adrienne McGlinchey to take the bomb to the cross-border town, where it exploded in a street close to the local courthouse, injuring three people.

She spoke of her conviction that the incident had been a garda operation – and necessary to protect Ms McGlinchey in case the IRA “copped on” to her activities as an informant.

Ms McMahon also said she had believed at the time that what went on was part of a bid to save lives and highlighted her shock when she found out it had been done only “for the self-gain and promotion” of her husband and Superintendent Lennon.

Today she was questioned about her relationships with some of the figures centrally caught up in her claims by Brian Murphy, counsel for Noel McMahon.

Asked about Garda Alison Teape, who last week said she was now having a relationship with her husband, Mrs McMahon said: “I am quite happy with Noel and Alison Teape. It is their life.

“I only felt cross with her (Alison) when she suggested I was a lesbian, and had made a pass at her.”

She also rejected a newspaper report that she had been “a mental patient who made wild allegations”.

The tribunal, headed by former High Court President Mr Justice Frederick Morris, was established by the Dail two years ago to investigate allegations centring on police inquiries over a number of years into a series of cases, including terrorist bomb-making, arson, the mystery death of a cattle dealer and a series of arrests, as well as the gardaí’s treatment and alleged harassment of the McBrearty family of Co Donegal.

The investigation opened in Donegal last year and shifted to Dublin last week to consider the evidence of scores of witnesses – a process that is expected to last up to two years.

The current module of the inquiry is dealing solely with allegations from Ms McMahon that her husband, the superintendent and Ms McGlinchey mixed explosives in a shed beside her home to be planted and later discovered in fake terrorist arms finds by the gardaí.

Mrs McMahon entered the witness box earlier this week and is not expected to conclude her evidence until next week.

She will be followed as a witness by Adrienne McGlinchey.