Ex-garda unaware of witness controversy, tribunal told

A former Sligo garda officer said he was unaware of controversy over a witness in a licensing prosecution against Frank McBrearty Snr, during a meeting with the witness and a senior officer ahead of the court case.

Retired garda John Nicholson told the Morris Tribunal into garda corruption in Donegal he had been asked to meet Detective Sergeant John White in the Sligo garda station car park on December 10, 1998.

During the meeting with Det Sgt White and witness Bernard Conlon, Mr Nicholson said he would arrange transport for Mr Conlon to go up to court in Letterkenny.

Superintendent Kevin Lennon, who was prosecuting the licensing case, had decided not to call Mr Conlon, who was found on the premises of Frank McBrearty snr’s nightclub after hours in what is alleged to have been a set-up.

But Mr Conlon had been called for cross-examination bythe defence.

Paul McDermott, senior counsel for the tribunal, said the court hearing scheduled for the day after the meeting had gone beyond a licensing matter and into whether there had been an abuse of process by the garda.

But Mr Nicholson denied he knew anything about what was going on in Donegal, despite it having implications for Sligo gardai, including himself, as he had taken the witness statement from Mr Conlon.

Mr McDermott asked: “Wouldn’t you have an enormous interest in making sure (Mr Conlon) held the line?”

“No, I had no interest in that at all, whatsoever,” he replied.

He said the controversy was not discussed in his presence during the meeting and he was not concerned about the garda treatment of the McBreartys in Raphoe.

“I thought everything was totally honest and in order in Donegal,” he said.

Mr Nicholson also denied receiving a phone call following the hearing, in which Det Sgt White had told him the case had gone normally.

“I had no interest in the case at all, I was just obliging him,” he said.

Mr Nicholson said that in April 1999 he picked up a letter from Mr Conlon, which the former garda said he understood was from a private investigator offering money to withdraw evidence against the McBreartys.

“He had received a letter from a private investigator, from Mr Flynn, and he had contacted Sgt White who had suggested he contacted me.

“I knew Mr Flynn was involved in investigations down in Donegal – I heard his name the first time when I went to Donegal in June 1997.”

Mr Nicholson said he had gone to Mr Conlon’s house on April 26 to pick up the letter, having mentioned it to Chief Superintendent Austin McNally.

“He showed me the letter and I vaguely glanced at it,” he said.

Asked by the chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris why he didn’t read it, he said he read bits of it.

“I knew very little about it – I went straight up and brought it up to Chief Superintendent McNally.”

He said the letter he was given was one page long, and denied ever seeing a second page.

There is no mention of a bribe for withdrawing evidence in the letter and there is now a second page – whose origin is disputed – to the letter, the Morris Tribunal heard.