Retired detective 'joked' about confession

A retired detective superintendent today revealed he had made a joke about a murder suspect confessing all to him hours before a false confession turned up on his behalf.

Gda Tina Fowley has claimed that while suspects, including Frank McBrearty Jnr, were being questioned she saw then Det. Insp. John McGinley appear to copy Mr McBrearty’s signature.

The Morris Tribunal has heard Gda Fowley later made her allegation to the Carty team that she had seen Insp McGinley practicing the signature and believed he had forged a signature on a murder confession.

Mr McBrearty denies signing a confession to the murder of cattle dealer Richie Barron which detectives say he made the same evening shortly before his release from custody. It was later ruled that Mr Barron was the victim of a hit-and-run rather than assault.

“There was banter during the day at one stage. I know at one stage I came into the room and I said that I had interviewed Frank McBrearty the last three hours and he had admitted the whole thing to me. I said it as a ruse and that was the last I heard about it,” Mr McGinley, now retired, said.

He added: “I don’t think anybody took it seriously because first of all they knew I wasn’t interviewing him at any time, for somebody to jump on the bandwagon then and forge a statement on his behalf was an awful long distance down the road.”

Gda Fowley has told the tribunal said she was walking past Insp McGinley when he drew her attention to a piece of paper and the signature of Mr McBrearty jnr.

Gda Fowley claimed he asked if it was a good likeness, they both laughed, she left and thought it was a joke.

Sgt Brendan Roache, who was also in the conference room at the time, told the tribunal although he never saw the piece of paper DI McGinley allegedly wrote on, but witnessed the interaction with Gda Fowley. He said he took the interchange as a joke.

Mr McGinley said: “There was no practicing of a signature, no writing of his signature either. But as I say I would have written his name maybe 40 times (on notes).

“I could have said something that he was as good a scribe as myself. I could have I don’t know, it is quite possible I did.”

Tribunal chairman, Justice Frederick Morris, said: “You knew Sgt Roache was saying I regarded it as all a joke. You knew that and you knew you had perpetrated a prank or a joke early in the morning. Why did you not let us all know that from way back?”

Mr McGinley said: “This man has a statement made that he says he didn’t sign, and I’m making a bit of banter about it in the morning and people linking me with it. How could you come out and say they were saying that I was responsible for it as it was without me saying anything?”

Mr McGinley said it was only many years later that forensics suggested Mr McBrearty may have signed the statement himself.

He said: “I think all along Gda Fowley knew that there was nothing underhand happening and it was used in a context in June 1999 for other motives and that is why I didn’t want to give it any credibility.”

Gda Fowley denied before the tribunal that she was part of any ploy by suspended Det Sgt John White and fired Gda John O’Dowd to set up Insp McGinley with the Carty team.

Mr McGinley said he believed she was used as a pawn.

He said: “She didn’t see me practicing Frank McBrearty’s signature and that is what she is saying.”

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