Morris tribunal: A witness yesterday failed to appear before the Morris tribunal to give evidence about his wrongful arrest and detention in 1996.
Mark McConnell was arrested as one of the main suspects in the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron in 1996 in what gardaí in Donegal believed was a murder inquiry. The tribunal found Mr Barron was a hit-and-run victim.
Mr McConnell failed to answer his summons. The chairman, Mr Justice Frederick Morris, said he had read the correspondence and Mr McConnell said words to the effect that he did not propose to come to the tribunal.
Peter Charleton SC, for the tribunal, said the summons was served by Michael Foley on September 5th last. Mr Foley was on holidays at the moment but could be there next week. Mr McConnell acknowledged service of the summons in an e-mail.
The chairman said he required formal evidence of the summons service and asked Mr Foley to attend next Tuesday.
"I do not propose to tolerate that sort of thing. If a tribunal summons a witness they are required to be in attendance. It is not as if this date was fixed in a vacuum. It was fixed in order to facilitate Mr McConnell, his evidence was accommodated in every respect possible.
"So on the day that the summons server can be here to prove service, I will make whatever order is appropriate at that time."
He added that he wanted a message to go out to Mr McConnell that he was required to attend at the tribunal.
"I want to make it clear to Mr McConnell he can't dictate when he will and when he will not attend," Mr Justice Morris said.
Last week the failure of Det Sgt John White to answer a summons was referred to the High Court.
Later yesterday, the tribunal continued its inquiries into a forged interview note from the interrogation of Mr McConnell's wife, Róisín.
Former Det Insp John McGinley, now retired, said about a year after the interview, he spoke to Det Garda John Harkin who had conducted the interview with him. He wanted two questions he had put to Ms McConnell taken out as he was embarrassed by them.
He had asked her: "Are you a good woman? Are you a religious woman?"
He then later asked Sgt Brian McEntee to act as a middle-man to ask Det Garda Harkin to remove the two questions.
"I'm deeply ashamed about it. It took on a life of its own. We didn't handle it very well and we find ourselves in this situation," he said.
"I'd like to apologise to you chairman and the tribunal."
He did not feel the issue had affected Ms McConnell in any way. "It was a cock-up from start to finish."
He agreed with the chairman that he told a "blatant lie" about it in previous evidence.