‘Murder suspect’ tells of movements on night of farmer’s death

Frank McBrearty, junior, one of two men gardaí saw as chief suspects for murder following the mystery death of a Co Donegal cattle leader nearly seven years ago, today detailed his movements on the night of the fatality for the Morris Garda corruption allegations tribunal.

Mr McBrearty, 34, the manager of his family’s nightclub in Raphoe, Co Donegal, was arrested, together with another leading suspect, his cousin Mark McConnell, some weeks after Richie Barron died near the town soon after midnight on October 16, 1996.

An inquest subsequently recorded an open verdict, and initially the death was put down to a hit-and-run incident.

But gardaí went on to launch a murder inquiry - a development that prompted the unfolding of events that helped lead to the establishment of the tribunal.

There were allegations that Mr McBrearty and Mr McConnell, together with their extended family, came in for “gross harassment” and mistreatment from the gardaí, and civil court cases are still being pursued about those claims.

The tribunal heard last month that Mr Barron died as he walked home after spending the night before his death drinking, and that his blood-alcohol level was far in excess of that permitted for driving.

Pathologists have indicated the probable reason for the death was a motor accident - and no-one has ever been charged in connection with the incident.

The current inquiry is examining in detail how the Barron death was investigated, including claims that garda officers were late arriving at the scene of the incident, and failed properly to preserve the scene after the discovery of the body, as well as their reasons for regarding the two cousins as murder suspects and other apparent flaws in the garda operation, among them questions about the use of informers.

A separate module of the tribunal is set to look into the actual arrest of Mr McBrearty at a later, still-to-be-fixed date.

Mr McBrearty today described events in the nightclub, known as both the Parting Glass and Frankie’s, on the night of the Barron death, reporting that he was dealing with a series of incidents involving customers - including speaking to a man who had been barred the week before, and a running fight that broke out between two men from Northern Ireland.

After the last of the incidents he walked back into the nightclub with one of the men involved, telling him to either behave himself or stay out of the club. He was working in the club up until it closed, and the crowd there for a disco that night could have numbered as many as 700.

“Our premises were very well run and that is why people were coming to us. It was normal night for me and the same as any other,” Mr McBrearty said.

While he could not say for sure, he believed Mark McConnell and his wife Roisin were there, but “they were the same as everyone else in the nightclub,” he asserted, and he had no particular reason to remember.

He had heard about Mr Barron being knocked down in a hit-and-run incident from a woman who arrived at the club, but gathered no more details because he was “so busy in the nightclub”.

And he denied talking about the Barron incident to another man later that night. He could not remember exactly when he was told Mr Barron had died.

After cleaning and locking up the nightclub, he arrived at his then home in Letterkenny, at between 3am and 3.30am.

Gardaí asked Mr McBrearty about the death of Mr Barron on the following Wednesday, the day of the funeral of the cattle-dealer and farmer. He agreed with a garda “in an exchange of pleasantries,” that “it had been a terrible thing that happened”.

He added: “I had no difficulty in helping them - I still do not.”

Ahead of Mr McBrearty’s appearance, a garda witness who interviewed his farmer cousin in connection with Mr Barron’s death, admitted the move was not the proudest moment of his career in the force.

Garda Seamus Patton was sent by senior colleagues to speak to his cousin John about his sighting of Frank McBrearty, junior, in the carpark of the family’s Raphoe premises on the night of the incident.

But Garda Patton failed to get a lot more information out of his cousin, even though their memories of the interview clashed on details.

He told the continuing probe into garda corruption allegations: “I would definitely refuse” if requested to do the same sort of thing again.

Earlier this week, John Patton told the inquiry that he spotted Frank McBrearty, junior, in the carpark, together with another unidentified man, while insisting that he saw nothing suspicious in his behaviour at the time.

But a number of garda officers - including Seamus Patton - have indicated that John gave them a different version of events, some reporting that Frank McBrearty had seemed excited “as if he had given a man a beating”.

Mr McBrearty denied claims by two gardaí that he “stared” at John Patton when he returned to the nightclub a week later.

He declared: “That is complete lies. I do not know that man.

“Those two guards have blackened my name. I never stared at anybody. I will have to wear sunglasses when I leave here in case people think I am staring at them.”

The tribunal was put in place by the Oireachtas almost two years ago to inquire into a series of claims about improper garda activities in Co Donegal during the 1990s.

It began hearing evidence in early March, firstly relating to separate allegations that two detectives - one of them Detective Superintendent Lennon - helped an IRA informer prepare explosives that were later planted and then found in bogus successful garda strikes against terrorist activities.

That dimension of the broader inquiry has now been adjourned and will resume back in Dublin later this year.

In all, the hearings are expected to last as long as two years.

The present phase of the proceedings is being staged in Donegal for the convenience of locally-based witnesses.