Sacked garda claims publican beat himself up

A Donegal garda sacked for his role in a botched murder investigation today claimed Frank McBrearty Jr beat himself up while in custody.

John O’Dowd, dismissed in December 2004 in the wake of a damning report from the Morris Tribunal, said he was disgusted by the Raphoe man’s actions.

He was being questioned at the time for allegedly assaulting a customer in his father’s nightclub in the town, Frankie’s. He was later acquitted in court.

Mr O’Dowd detailed how Mr McBrearty threatened to harm himself after being arrested and within an hour began banging his head off a wall in an interview room.

The 48-year-old former garda said Mr McBrearty was like a ticking time bomb.

“(Mr McBrearty said) I’m going to bang my head off that wall and I’m going to blame you O’Dowd’,” he said.

“(It was) the maddest, craziest thing I ever witnessed in my life.”

O’Dowd said he tried to get him to stop and reported it immediately to a garda sergeant and a solicitor.

He accused Mr McBrearty of doing it to try to frame him for assault.

“He’s made loads of allegations about me here, and there’s not one of them true.

“It was an explosion… he was like a lump of gelignite, a short fuse.”

The incident happened several weeks after Mr McBrearty had been arrested on suspicion of murdering Richie Barron. Mr O’Dowd said Mr McBrearty was acting distressed but was in fact in control.

He said he had the presence of mind to warn him what he planned to do and the quick wit to blame him as soon as a witness appeared. “This man had it planned, he knew what he was doing,” he said.

Earlier, one of two retired garda detectives accused of securing a false murder confession from Mr McBrearty insisted the admission was true.

Even though the tribunal accepts the statement is bogus, John Fitzpatrick continually claimed Mr McBrearty told him in December 1996 that he attacked cattle dealer Richie Barron.

The admission has never been repeated.

Tribunal lawyers suggested the statement was obtained through deception either by tricking Mr McBrearty into signing or by writing it up later.

But Mr Fitzpatrick replied: “That never happened. I don’t believe that you could ever do anything like that, that statement was made by Frank McBrearty Jr, it was signed by him and it was also witnessed by Detective Sergeant [John] Melody.”

The pair, Mr Fitzpatrick and Mr Melody, both now retired from the force, were brought from Dublin to Donegal to interrogate Mr McBrearty and are the only two to ever hear the confession.

Mr Fitzpatrick sat in the witness box as the catalogue of abuse allegedly meted out to Mr McBrearty was described.

Lawyers said he was called a wife beater, an alcoholic and a murdering bastard. They said he was told he was going down for 20 years, that he would be raped in Mountjoy Prison and that he should do himself a favour and hang himself in police cells.

Mr Fitzpatrick replied: “That’s total fiction. That’s lies. He was never told that. No, I never said anything like that. Neither did Sgt Melody. That was never said. That’s a lie.”

At the tribunal several gardaí are being questioned over the arrest and detention of 12 people, many related to the McBreartys, all of whom have alleged abuse while in custody.