'Informer sought revenge after garda's wife blew her cover'

Alleged informer Adrienne McGlinchey claimed her garda handler blackmailed her into posing as an IRA mole as an act of revenge when his wife blew her cover, the Morris Tribunal today heard.

Detective Noel McMahon said the Letterkenny woman was motivated by revenge and anger when she made claims about corrupt activities on his part in Co Donegal during the 1990s.

Giving evidence for a third successive day at the Dublin-based inquiry, Mr McMahon also described the status of informers in border area as “the lowest form of life – even lower than drugs-pushers”, by way of explanation for Ms McGlinchey’s actions.

He conceded feeling partly responsible when his estranged wife Sheenagh “brought it out” that Ms McGlinchey was operating as an informer, and for that reason he could not blame her for trying to deny that suggestion.

Noel McMahon, Ms McGlinchey’s handler, added: “Ms McGlinchey invented accusations against me in revenge – to make me look corrupt so that her blackmail story would stand up.”

Pressed on Ms McGlinchey’s assertion that he blackmailed her into becoming an informer he replied: “Along the border, an informer is the lowest form of life - even lower than a drugs-pusher.”

He told the Tribunal be believed Ms McGlinchey – who has denied she was ever an informer or a member of the IRA – was prompted by revenge because her cover as an informer had been revealed.

Ms McGlinchey had told the Tribunal she was blackmailed into posing as an informer by Detective McMahon because he had threatened her with prosecution for cheque fraud and possession of bullets.

Noel McMahon said: “I believe she invented these first two allegations of blackmail with a view to covering herself that she was blackmailed by me into doing certain things.

“Her allegations were probably made as an act of vengeance or anger.”

He added: “I can understand Ms McGlinchey’s anger that I couldn’t stop my wife talking. We did offer her confidentiality and we did let her down.”

“It think it would be very difficult to go back to Donegal if she was regarded as an informer.

“I had promised her before Inspector Lennon came on the scene complete anonymity and confidentiality.”

And he told tribunal chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris, a former High Court President, “I am here to tell the Tribunal the truth. That is the best I can do - I can only sit here and tell the truth.”

He also reported how at one stage Ms McGlinchey had “teased” the garda detective branch in Buncrana – where she lived in a flat – by pretending to be cutting metal on the premises, using an angle-grinder.

In reality, she told the detective she was “chopping metal” to frustrate officers in a passing patrol car, because she was “fed up with them watching her”.

Noel McMahon added: “It was either attention-seeking or a decoy mission.

“She said she was just having a good laugh. The guards were tied up while they were watching her.”

He told the Tribunal he asked Ms McGlinchey to stop what she was doing as it was attracting attention and making things difficult for home.

The judge said to the witness: “Was it her way of avoiding attention? Did you point out that she was going the wrong way about it? It seems absolutely absurd.”

The detective said that on another occasion, Ms McGlinchey had told him about an arms bunker in a filled-in swimming pool which contained fertiliser and other items.

He added that she often joked that the roses would do well because of the fertiliser.

Tribunal lawyer Paul McDermott also put it to Noel McMahon that there had been a “cottage industry” in Donegal, grinding fertiliser for IRA bombs while questioning the detective about the use of a coffee grinder by Ms McGlinchey to grind down that material in her Buncrana flat.

Detective Garda McMahon said he did not believe Ms McGlinchey could grind enough fertiliser at her home and that a tractor attachment was used for that purpose at a farm location she had told him about in Quigley’s Point.

The detective earlier admitted he was wrong to store rocket launcher prototypes in a shed at his home, instead of immediately handing them his superior officers.

Mr McMahon told the corruption probe he kept the items, he claims to have received from Adrienne McGlinchey, in a shed – having never really thought out his actions.

He dismissed as “false” assertions by Ms McGlinchey that he directed her to get the prototypes made up to be left in parts of Co Donegal to be uncovered in bogus garda arms finds.

Mr McMahon, who has been suspended from duty since 1999 following a series of investigations into garda activity in Donegal, said that at the time the incidents happened there was a lot of confusion and internal garda investigators, under Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty, were with him on many occasions.

He said: “I never really thought it out as I expected the Carty team to come to the conclusion that I partook in no hoax bombs or illegal activities, and I made a few on-the-spot decisions that were wrong by not handing in the smaller items.

“My younger sister then died, worried about me. Following that, my mother gave up living – she died 12 months later.

“All-in-all, I did not think things back properly, and I still expected the Carty team to probably do the work for me. There is some confusion from when my sister died in 2000, and I would admit there is some confusion in my memos.”

Noel McMahon is one of two detectives alleged to have prepared explosives, together with Ms McGlinchey, that later turned up in bogus garda arms finds.

Both he and Superintendent Kevin Lennon, also suspended at present, have denied the claims.

The tribunal was established by order of the Oireachtas two years ago to inquire into a wide-ranging series of claims about garda activities in the Co Donegal division during the 1990s.

The overall investigation is expected to go on for at least two years, with some reports now indicating it could be 2006 before the proceedings finally conclude.