Garda denies interfering with TV mast evidence

Morris tribunal: A Co Donegal garda has denied he interfered with evidence, including opening bags containing powder from an…

Morris tribunal: A Co Donegal garda has denied he interfered with evidence, including opening bags containing powder from an explosive device found on a television mast and then tested some of it.

Det Sgt John White described how he went to the mast at Ardara, Co Donegal, on November 19th, 1996, with another garda after a call was received that a suspicious object had been found.

He said it was an object on the cable with what looked like a fuse. It certainly looked like an explosive device. He called Supt Denis Cullinane and other gardaí. The Army bomb disposal unit was called. The item did not explode.

The material was put into plastic bags and handed to Sgt Seán McKenna. The Army commandant told him it was made of firecrackers.

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Peter Charleton SC, for the tribunal, suggested that Sgt McKenna and another garda had said that he had taken a spoonful of the powder to test it in some way. "I've no recollection of touching the device. I didn't open the bags, I'm too long in the game. I knew they were firecrackers," he said.

He was sure as could be that he did not take any to test it. He would tell the tribunal if he did.

The tribunal was hearing the first day of the module relating to the finding of the explosive device. Previously, in an opening statement, Mr Charleton said there were allegations that this device was made in Ardara Garda station or a Garda station in Donegal.

It was alleged it was brought to the mast and planted for the purpose of arresting a number of people. These people included Hugh Diver, the late Anthony Diver and Bernard Shovlin, their brother-in-law, who had land adjacent to the mast.

The 8-ft mast was on the side of a mountain on a Telecom Éireann site. In the 1990s a licence was required by Cable Management Ltd from the then Department of Communications to transmit television signals in southwestern Donegal by means of masts.

There were protests by local people as they felt there were enough masts and adequate transmission. On November 7th, 1996, there was an arson attack on the site which caused £50,000 of damage to equipment.

Det Sgt White also denied that he made an anonymous phone call to one of the suspected protesters the night before the explosive device was found, asking what was going on at the mast and if he would meet the next day. He also said that an allegation that he illegally took a jar of glue from the shed of one of the suspected protesters as evidence was "ridiculous, dirty, disgusting".

The three men were arrested on November 20th, 1996, in connection with it. Anthony Diver and Bernard Shovlin were released the same day and Hugh Diver the next day.

Mr Charleton said that on November 21st, Det Sgt White went to Anthony Diver's house to ask about a missing key. Mr Diver became agitated and angry. Mr Diver had said to Det Sgt White: "How do we know you didn't plant the device yourself to get an arrest?" Det Sgt White said: "I told him 'I most certainly did not'."