Morris witness accused of inventing evidence

Crucial Morris tribunal witness Adrienne McGlinchey today heard herself called a cunning and pathological liar and was accused of inventing much of her evidence.

During the opening stages of an anticipated marathon cross-examination, the 39-year-old Co Donegal woman was also asked by the judge heading the garda corruption probe in Dublin: “Are you a Walter Mitty character? Are you inclined to shoot people a line?”

Former High Court President Mr Justice Frederick Morris went on to put it to Ms McGlinchey: “Were you trying to impress the guards? Were you trying to make youself sound important?”

Ms McGlinchey was appearing as a witness for a ninth day at the tribunal established by the Dail two years ago to investigate alleged improper garda activities in Co Donegal during the 1990s.

She has repeatedly denied claims that she was ever in the IRA or passed on information about that organisation to gardai.

But she has maintained that together with two garda figures at the centre of the inquiry – detective Noel McMahon and currrently-suspended Garda Superintendent Kevin Lennon – she prepared explosives that were later planted and then formed part of bogus finds of terrorist hauls designed to boost the careers of the officers involved. Both men have rejected the claims.

Ms McGimpsey has also asserted that she got involved in those and other activities because she was being blackmailed by Noel McMahon, firstly over her fraudulent use of cheques and later over bullets that carried her fingerprints.

Today, the cross examination opened with a detailed line of questioning from Brian Murphy, the barrister representing Detective Garda McMahon.

He suggested to the witness that she had made up the “highly implausible and unlikely” line about the blackmailing, adding that “this progression into increasing wrongdoing” had not been mentioned by her when he gave statements that ran to 150 pages to an earlier internal garda inquiry into the Donegal allegations, headed by Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty.

The lawyer said: “I have to put it to you that you just invented it. This is absolute fantasy stuff – nothing like that ever happened.”

Ms McGimpsey responded: “No, it happened, and nothing’s ever going to change it. It happened and we done it.

“I said all this to the Carty team, and it was five weeks before they wrote their statement. I can take responsibility for them not writing down certain things.”

Mr Murphy went on to say to Ms McGlinchey: “Whatever possible mayhem you can cause for Noel McMahon, you will do it.”

The “liar” claim was made when Mr Murphy asked about references she has made at the tribunal to Pierce Devine, the brother of her friend Yvonne Devine.

Earlier Ms McGlinchey said Pierce Devine had helped her carry bags of fertiliser into a shed at her home in Letterkenny where they were ground down for use as explosives.

Mr Murphy told her that Pierce Devine had denied that claim in a statement, where he also commented about Ms McGlinchey: “I think she is a cunning liar. She threatened to involve me, and she has.

“I have seen her referred to as a pathological liar.”

Ms McGlinchey said today: “All I can say is that I told him to do it. All I can do is wait and hear what he says on the stand.”

Mr Murphy also pressed Ms McGlinchey about a period when she fraudulently used cheques she had taken from her family.

And he went on to put to her that she had acquired money – as much as £6,000 - through false pretences from Americans while on a holiday in the United States by selling them souvenirs she claimed were to raise cash for famine relief back in Ireland.

Mrs McGlinchey told the lawyer: “It was for famine commemoration, or something. I honestly did not think I was doing anything wrong. I did not think there was any harm in it. We did not make that much.”

Mr Murphy said: “I suppose a colloquialism for that would be con-man activities.”

She went on to deny talking to detectives about a bunker that contained a weapons haul in Co Donegal, declaring at one point: “I have never seen a bunker.”

She rejected, too, a written statement from a garda saying she had once held a key to the Sinn Fein office in Letterkenny.

Raising her voice for emphasis, Ms McGlinchey told the tribunal “I have never, ever had a key to the Sinn Fein office in my life. This is getting better, so it is. I am sorry, but this is ridiculous.”