Informer broke garda bleeper, tribunal told

An alleged IRA informer who was given a garda bleeper smashed it because he didn’t know how to turn it off, the Morris Tribunal heard today.

Former garda John O’Dowd said he gave the bleeper to William Doherty to keep in contact with him. He believed he would receive information on subversive activities from Doherty.

Judge Morris asked him why he had stopped using his bleeper to contact Doherty’s one.

Mr O’Dowd said: “He broke it. He said his father heard it beeping one day and asked him ‘What’s that?’ He smashed it to stop it from beeping.”

The tribunal heard that on November 10 1996, Doherty made a phone call to the house of a local man in Raphoe, Co Donegal, threatening that he would blame him for the death of a cattle dealer unless he was paid £2,000.

The informer dialled the number from the home of garda O’Dowd, who was sacked from the force last year.

Garda O’Dowd said he had been told by Superintendent Kevin Lennon, who was also dismissed from the force last year, to allow Doherty to use the phone whenever he liked.

Judge Morris asked what possible need an informer would have to use his phone.

“It isn’t as if your informer was going to be ringing up someone to check something.

Garda O’Dowd replied: “He might have wanted to ring his contacts in the Provos (Provisional IRA).”

A local couple, Charlotte and Michael Peoples, reported that they had received a series of calls looking for money in relation to the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron. Phone records showed that one of the calls had come from Mr O’Dowd’s house and four more from Mr Doherty’s residence.

Mr O’Dowd had denied an extortion phone call had been made from his house for the last eight years, until he finally admitted it in a statement to the tribunal in October last year.

“The only reason I had any dealings with Doherty in the beginning was his potential for subversive information. That’s how it started off, there’s no mystery about it at all,” he said.

He denied a suggestion from Judge Morris that he was attempting to soften his ‘absurd explanation’ for Doherty’s phone call.

Judge Morris said he found it hard to believe that after such a ‘landmark event’, O’Dowd would not be able to remember what he told another Garda over the phone later that night. He said he found it even harder to believe that he could not remember a further phone conversation with Doherty.