Report on McBrearty complaints defended

A retired chief superintendent said he did not set out to discourage further investigation in a covering report he prepared for the Garda Complaints Board that accompanied his findings on several complaints by the McBrearty family, who claimed they were the victims of Garda misconduct.

The tribunal is examining the operation of the board and how it dealt with more than 60 complaints it received from the extended family over a two-year period.

Frank McBrearty snr and others had complained they were mistreated when they were arrested in 1996 and were subsequently the targets of a campaign of Garda harassment.

The family were wrongly identified as murder suspects by gardaí investigating the death of local cattle dealer Richie Barron.

Retired chief superintendent John Carey investigated several of the complaints and prepared a report for the board before it met to consider the cases in May 1999.

"I didn't set out to create any impression. I gave the facts and I was relying on the facts," Mr Carey told the tribunal. "I wasn't trying to demonise anybody. I was trying to stick to the facts as far as I could establish them."

Mr Carey told Pat Marrinan SC, representing the Garda Commissioner, that he had disciplined members as a chief superintendent and had sat on Garda tribunals that had dismissed members from the force. "I wouldn't have any lack of conviction or determination to deal with any member of An Garda Síochána who had been out of line."

Mr Carey said his covering report covered "the good and the bad" about members of the extended McBrearty family.

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times