Witness denies changing statement at garda's behest

A Donegal businesswoman broke down today as she insisted to the Morris Tribunal she had not been prompted to change her witness statement.

Mary McGranaghan claimed no-one had planted the idea in her mind and that she had simply been mistaken about the identification of a man she saw in Raphoe on the night cattle dealer Richie Barron was killed.

“Certainly no-one prompted me. I am sure,” she said.

Ms McGranaghan originally said she had seen Eamon Meehan on the street with Mark McConnell late on October 14 1996, the night Mr Barron died in an apparent hit-and-run.

But two months later, in January 1997, she amended her statement, deciding it was actually Michael Peoples she had seen – a member of the extended McBrearty family which claims to have been framed for murder.

Ms McGranaghan admitted there was a lot of local gossip flying about the town in the wake of Mr Barron’s death and that most suggested Peoples was responsible.

But she was adamant that she would not have changed her statement unless she had later come face to face with Peoples, and realised her mistake.

“On the night in question I was not taking a great deal of notice about who was passing,” she said.

“There was local talk and knowledge that it was Michael Peoples. I heard all the talk but wasn’t sure myself. I was not happy until I saw him myself in the shop.”

As she began to cry, Justice Frederick Morris interjected, suggesting that there was always a possibility Ms McGranaghan, as an innocent, respectful lady, may have been used.

“We are just trying to establish who may be responsible for this alleged case drummed up against the McBrearty family,” he said.

But Ms McGranaghan claimed she would never have changed her statement had she not encountered Peoples herself in a shop, at which point she realised her mistake.

She alleged that she had been under a lot of pressure when she made her first statement, believing herself a suspect.

And she also claimed that one of the Carty team had told her husband she had a guilty conscience.

Ms McGranaghan admitted she had found this “extraordinary” but had done nothing about it.

Earlier, Sergeant Tom McMenamin denied influencing Ms McGranaghan in any specific way after it had been established that Mr Meehan had been at home by 9pm on the night Richie Barron died.

“I did not, and have never in all my time of taking statements, suggested to anyone that a particular person may have been in a certain place at a certain time,” he said.

However, he did admit that he told her the man she saw could not have been Mr Meehan, to which she had then said “something to the effect” that it may have been someone else.

The tribunal was also told that in her third statement, Ms McGranaghan had then narrowed down the time she saw the two men, from between 11pm and 11.50pm in the first, to 11pm in the third.

The inquiry was set up to look into the Garda murder investigation following Mr Barron’s death on October 14, 1996, in an apparent hit-and-run in Raphoe, Co Donegal.

An investigation, headed by the Assistant Commissioner Kevin Carty, was then launched in 1999 after the McBrearty family alleged they had been harassed by local gardaí during the investigation.