A MAN charged with the murder of his wife and a baby girl continued to be interviewed by gardai after he sought medication, the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.
Sgt Patsy Glennon said he had interviewed Mr Francis McCann at Tallaght Garda station on November 5th and 6th, 1992. He said Mr McCann had requested tablets at 5 p.m. and at 6.30 p.m. on November 5th 1994. He had continued to interview him after these requests.
He said Mr McCann had appeared "in fine form" and he did not believe it was a situation where the interview could not continue. He accepted he could not say what Mr McCann was like internally. He denied a suggestion that he was seeking to portray a different image of the interview with Mr McCann from what had actually occurred.
Sgt Glennon was being cross examined by Mr Barry White SC, defending, on the 31st day of the trial of Mr McCann (36), who has denied the murders of his wife Esther (36), and an 18 month old baby, Jessica, at the family home at Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin, on September 4th, 1992.
The jury has been told that Jessica was a blood relative of the defendant but not a child of his marriage to Esther. The prosecution has claimed Mr McCann arranged the fire because he did not want to tell his wife why the Adoption Board had refused their application to adopt Jessica.
In court yesterday, Sgt Glennon said he had interviewed Mr McCann for more than three hours on the night of November 5th, 1992 and he had declined to answer questions about the night of the fire. He agreed he had noted no more than 10 lines of remarks made by Mr McCann. He also agreed his notes of the interview might be slightly deficient and that breaks were not entered as required by regulations.
That interview ended about 10.10 pm. He believed Mr McCann had explained a lot of the surrounding matters to the fire and felt a breakthrough had been achieved, but he agreed there was no confession to setting the fire.
He said he interviewed Mr McCann the following morning at 8.05 a.m. He had not been briefed about developments the previous night. He denied a suggestion that at least a memo of any admissions would have been left for him.
Sgt Glennon denied a suggestion that Mr McCann's brothers, Michael and Bernard, had been brought in on November 6th to persuade him to make a confession. He agreed Mr McCann had not made a statement admitting to starting the fire until his brothers had seen him.
The first time Mr McCann had told him that he started the fire was at 10.50 am. on November 6th, he said. He agreed that at that point there were just over two hours to go before Mr McCann's period of detention expired.
The trial continues today before Mr Justice Carney.