Morris witness denies affair with garda

The Morris Tribunal went behind closed doors today as colourful witness Adrienne McGlinchey began her fifth day of evidence at the garda corruption inquiry by denying any form of sexual relationship with Detective Garda Noel McMahon, one of the central figures in the on-going probe.

The investigation started a closed, in-camera session, scheduled to last the rest of the day, at least, after Ms McGlinchey firmly denied ever having an affair with the detective, who has been alleged to have joined with her and now-suspended Garda Superintendent Kevin Lennon in mixing explosives later planted to be uncovered in bogus garda finds of terrorist arms dumps.

Pressed by tribunal counsel Michael Charleton on her friendship with Noel McMahon – described by the lawyer as “a delicate matter” – the 39-year-old blonde witness admitted that she had spent a great deal of time with the detective.

But she declared: “I have never had a sexual relationship with Noel McMahon. He on many occasions tried to go with me when he had drink on him.

“I have not had an affair with him. I was not going with him.”

She agreed that she had told an internal garda investigation into the Donegal allegations that McMahon had been a good-looking man.

But Ms McGlinchey rejected suggestions put to her that she had told her friend Yvonne Devine that she had “flashed her breasts” at Noel McMahon while he was driving, causing him to go into a ditch, claiming instead: “He was plastered drunk – I don’t think he would have seen any part of my body.”

She denied as well she had told Yvonne Devine that she was going out with Noel McMahon – or that she had been approached by the IRA at one point and told to stop her activities because she was embarrassing that organisation.

Ms McGlinchey also claimed that she had been threatened while in the company gardai with being thrown off a pier or “put through a windscreen”.

The witness, who has denied either being in the IRA or acting an informer for the gardai on the terror group’s activities, also insisted today that she was standing over all of her evidence to the tribunal, which has dealt with explosives, the dropping of terrorist equipment in various parts of Donegal and a range of other activities.

She maintained: “Everything that I have said is what happened – no matter how outrageous they seem to be. I can’t change them.

“I am not getting anything if I humiliate myself by saying that I did these things – I did do them. But I did them along with Noel McMahon and Kevin Lennon. And I will not be changing that.”

The tribunal, headed by former High Court President Mr Justice Frederick Morris , went in-camera to consider documents on which privilege has been claimed by Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne.