Morris tribunal: Donegal publican Frank McBrearty jnr has told the Morris tribunal that he does not know if a signature on a controversial and disputed confession was his own, and alleged that cattle dealer Richie Barron, the victim of a hit- and-run collision, was killed by a garda.
The publican showed the Morris tribunal a cheque for €1.5 million received in an out-of-court settlement of a civil claim and said it proved he was framed.
"I'm giving you the information to the best of my ability," he concluded. "I was in a room. I didn't make no confession. Whatever they done they concocted it up between them. I don't know.
"If that's my signature it was got by a trick. You will not know until you forensically examine that statement."
Mr McBrearty told the tribunal about his treatment during his arrest following Mr Barron's death a decade ago.
He alleged he was abused verbally, shown gruesome postmortem photographs, slapped on the ears, kicked in the shins, poked with a pen, threatened with life imprisonment and that a garda pushed his knee into his chest.
As a result, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and had received psychiatric care since his arrest, he said.
The tribunal has found that Mr Barron died in a hit-and run-collision, and that Mr McBrearty and 11 other people arrested by gardaí in 1996 were innocent of any involvement in his death.
"If you don't know me by now, no matter what they would do to me, no matter what they would do to me, they would not get me to admit to something I didn't do," he told tribunal barrister Paul McDermott SC, who asked him if he signed the document or was tricked into signing it.
"Four people from Dublin tried to fabricate evidence against me, and the guards from Donegal tried to frame me for murder, a murder that didn't even happen.
"So don't you lecture me, Mr McDermott, about the fact I made a confession when I didn't make one."
Mr McBrearty said the disputed confession was "manufactured" by gardaí, and alleged that at the time of his arrest, gardaí in Donegal knew that a garda sitting in the tribunal room had killed Mr Barron.
He said he would be unable to attend again at the tribunal for the next two weeks, because he had to attend to flood damage to his business premises in Co Donegal. He asked that the tribunal come to Donegal to hear further evidence from him and his father, so that they were not away from their business for weeks on end.
The tribunal plans to hear further evidence in Donegal on October 23rd.
Mr McBrearty was also arrested on February 4th, 1997, in connection with an alleged assault for which he was later acquitted. He said he had spoken to the late Mgr Denis Faul between his arrests, who advised him not to answer any questions in custody.
Mr McBrearty said that he was verbally and physically abused, and at one stage, to get out of the interview room, punched himself four times in the face. Extracts from a video of Mr McBrearty's second arrest and detention were shown at the tribunal. He said water was thrown on him, a garda stepped on his back and hot cigarette ash was flicked on the back of his neck, but this was not shown on the video.
Mr McBrearty, who had said he would not return to the tribunal, took the stand under protest, saying that his constitutional rights had been infringed. In heated exchanges, he later said the tribunal was "corrupt" and "a cover-up".
He said he would not give evidence while two gardaí were in the room "because they're looking at me".