Detective gave his firearm to woman, court told

A detective garda gave his personal issue firearm to a Co Donegal woman for her to produce in a car-park where another man handed over money in a package, the Court of Criminal Appeal was told.

Det Gda Noel McMahon told Ms Adrienne McGlinchey the man was a drug dealer and that there was £2,000 involved, Ms McGlinchey said.

She said Det McMahon was "making out as if it was a laugh". Det McMahon had given her his gun and, as she was talking to the man in the car park, she had taken the gun from one of her pockets and placed it in another. The man had given her a package, she saw there was money in it but didn't know how much. Det McMahon had told her it was £2,000. She gave the package to him. She did not know why the money was handed over.

Ms McGlinchey said she was given Mr McMahon's firearm on a number of occasions. One time, at Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal, Insp (now Supt) Kevin Lennon had also given her his firearm to hold.

On another occasion, she had taken Det McMahon's gun from him and driven his patrol car from Malin Head because he was "plastered". She had thrown the gun into the back seat of the car.

Ms McGlinchey was continuing her evidence in the hearing of an application by Mr Frank Shortt for a certificate declaring a miscarriage of justice in his case.

Asked about a number of interviews she gave to the Carty team inquiring into allegations of corruption against gardaí in Co Donegal, she said the court should understand there were occasions when she was "half-cut" and wasn't clear about incidents. She said she had not said certain things recorded in the interviews and that others were taken out of context. She didn't remember anything being read over to her and recalled "signing my name all the time".

Asked about information given to the Carty team on September 13th and 14th 1999, she said that after she had been unable to buy drugs for Det McMahon, he had told her he was getting another man, from Muff, Co Donegal, to buy drugs. Det McMahon had also said he got another man from Buncrana to get drugs.

She believed the man from Muff was the one Det McMahon used to put drugs in the Point Inn.

Around the same time as a Garda raid on the Point Inn - August 2nd 1992 - there was also a "fertiliser operation" under way, she said. This involved the gardaí in Buncrana, everyone that Det McMahon worked with, being set up, she said.

In relation to the Point Inn, the plan was that she would go to Lifford, contact Det McMahon and he would bring her to the Point. He had drugs at that stage, she said.

There was an understanding she would have an alibi for the time of the Garda raid on the Point Inn. She was to be in custody in Lifford Garda station. When she went to Lifford, she collected a tripod but took it into a pub, got drunk and got "lifted".

Every so often, she had to "get lifted to make it convincing that we were terrorists", she said. This was done on a regular basis from 1991 to 1994. When she was lifted, even if she had a machine gun, she would be released after ten minutes.

She said Det McMahon "went mad" when she got lifted with the tripod in the pub. She said the tripod was "only rigged up", that Det McMahon would make them up in his house.

She said she had not told the Carty inquiry team she had planted drugs in the Point Inn. She had told them she was asked to do so. She was not given money by Supt Lennon to buy drugs but was given money by Det McMahon to buy drugs. She had asked a girl she worked with about getting drugs but never got them.

On September 6th 1999, she said she was approached by Det McMahon in a car park in Letterkenny. He was trying to get her to drop her statement and kept pushing her. She was terrified and jumped into her car. She was reversing and he was pulling at the door and banging on the window. He had said: "Open the f . . . ing door, do you realise what you're doing, what's going to happen . . ." A garda had come over and asked her was she OK. Det McMahon had told the garda to "f . . . off". She was crying.