Morris Tribunal: Abused woman refuses to accept apology

A mother of three today refused to accept an apology from a Garda Sergeant who abused and mistreated her in custody.

Katrina Brolly, 46, has told how Sergeant John White threatened her with 14 years in jail, used foul and abusive language and pulled a cigarette out of her mouth.

At the Morris Tribunal, solicitor Paudge Dorrian said he wanted to apologise on Sergeant White’s behalf for the way she had been treated during the interview and for the long delay in dealing with the matter.

“I take it you accept that?” he asked.

“No,” replied Mrs Brolly.

The 46-year-old Donegal woman was being questioned in Letterkenny garda station in December 1996 about the activities of her brother-in-law Mark McConnell, whom gardaí wrongly suspected of being involved in the death of local cattle dealer Richie Barron.

Mr Dorrian, who was cross-examining Mrs Brolly, suggested that Sergeant White and his colleague Garda John Dooley had been using a ‘good cop, bad cop’ strategy.

“At times you were asked to have a cup of tea and then everybody would be pleasant, at times there would be tough questioning,” he said.

Mrs Brolly replied: “More times unpleasant than they were pleasant. I just kept saying the same thing all night and they wouldn’t believe me.”

She told the tribunal how Sergeant White had taken a cigarette out of her hand during the 12-hour interview, put it out and lit one up himself.

“I thought that was just very childish. I just thought he was acting like a child. That’s the way I regarded it,” she said.

Mrs Brolly has told the tribunal how a female garda, Joan Gallagher, pulled her hair during the interview and called her a lying bitch. Ms Gallagher is denying this.

She was also shown graphic photographs from the post mortem of Richie Barron.

Mrs Brolly said that Sean Herraghty, one of several other gardai who took part in the 12-hour interrogation of Mrs Brolly in Letterkenny Garda station in December 1996, had hit her on the finger with a pen.

Solicitor Tom Murphy told Mrs Brolly that his client had no recollection of any confrontation during the interview.

“You were quite mannerly throughout and that there was no difficulty. You were answering questions as you were asked and there was no argy-bargy,” he said.

But Mrs Brolly insisted that the incident with the pen did happen.

“He (Herraghty) hit me in the finger with it. It seems to be bothering you more than it was bothering me,” he said.

Mr Murphy said Detective Garda Herraghty, who is now retired, viewed the ‘pen allegation’ as a serious one and thought that Judge Frederick Morris might take the same view.

He asked Mrs Brolly why she had not included the alleged incident in her statement to the Garda Complaints Board and had only disclosed it in cross-examination yesterday.

“Well as I said, after all the abuse I went through, I mustn’t have thought it was important enough,” said Mrs Brolly.

She said Detective Garda Herraghty had threatened during the interview that he would go to Raphoe to uncover "skeletons in the closet" about her.