Gardai 'stored bomb material in flat'

Garda Insp (now Supt) Kevin Lennon and Det Garda Noel McMahon stored fertiliser and sugar in a woman's flat in Buncrana which was then planted on other people's lands to be found later by gardaí, the Court of Criminal Appeal heard yesterday.

A tape recording showed Mr Lennon also knew about drugs being planted by gardaí before a raid on the Point Inn nightclub at Quigley's Point, Inishowen, which was owned by Mr Frank Shortt, Ms Adrienne McGlinchey told the court. The club owner later served a three-year sentence for allowing drugs to be sold on his premises.

A video recording of Mr Lennon coming into a shop in Letterkenny, on an occasion when he allegedly warned Ms McGlinchey not to speak to anyone, had been passed to gardaí involved with the Carty inquiry into allegations of corruption among gardaí in Co Donegal, it was stated. Ms McGlinchey said she looked for the return of the video but had not been given it. The court was told the tape, which has no sound, is in the State's possession.

Ms McGlinchey said Mr Lennon had come to her shop at the beginning of the Carty investigation. He spoke of another woman "going off her head", and warned her not to speak to anyone. Mr Lennon asked her to tell the other woman to shut her mouth, 'we're all going to be dragged in' and that her [Ms McGlinchey's] prints were everywhere, she claimed.

Ms McGlinchey said Mr Lennon wanted her to tell that the other woman was in the IRA, that she'd be shot, and to shut up. Mr Lennon had told her he was going to "go down" and he was going to take everyone with him.

Ms McGlinchey, of Port Road, Letterkenny, was continuing her evidence in Mr Shortt's application for a certificate that there was a miscarriage of justice in his case. Mr Shortt was jailed for three years in 1995. His conviction was overturned in November 2000 on grounds that newly discovered facts rendered it unsafe. The DPP neither opposed the quashing of the conviction nor sought a retrial.

Ms McGlinchey said she became involved with Mr McMahon after she had a row at home after she and a friend, who had been from a republican background, were "lifted" while out cycling. She had left home with the family chequebook.

The gardaí were after her and Mr McMahon met her in the convent across the road from her home. He told her if she co-operated with them, he would make sure nothing happened to her. They never told her her mother had paid all the money back.

Ms McGlinchey said it all "started out small" but then "snowballed".

It was about "making" Mr Lennon superintendent, then chief superintendent and then commissioner, she said. Det Garda McMahon had told her everyone was saying she was in the IRA and she was better off letting people think that.

At first, she was asked to do "silly things", like throwing torches and wires behind a wall which they would then say they found. Mr McMahon rang her at work "all the time", sometimes six times a day, saying 'You'd better get me something'.

He had told her to get a bag of fertiliser and bring it to her flat.Then he would come to the flat with bags. She was given money by Mr McMahon and Mr Lennon to buy stuff, not for herself. She was given "hundreds" to buy bags and steel objects to show their bosses. Mr McMahon would say to her to take money, that Mr Lennon was "making a fortune".

One time Mr McMahon and Mr Lennon put fertiliser and sugar in her flat and padlocked the door of the room where it was because her friend was having a party which went on for three days. There was Garda surveillance "to keep an eye on the stuff".

On Monday morning when she went to work she got a call from Mr McMahon who said Mr Lennon wanted the stuff out and it had to be taken out. Mr McMahon came to her workplace and drove her to his own house where they waited for Mr Lennon.

When Mr Lennon came, he said there was "nothing to worry about".

Ms McGlinchey said the "whole town" thought the stuff was hers when it was "theirs". It was on the news. She was taken to Burnfoot and spent the night in a cell in Burnfoot Garda station. Mr Lennon told her while there to bang on the table and shout "Leave me alone" and to make a complaint saying he was "terrible" to her. She thought this was a joke and did so.

Another woman began to talk when Mr Lennon received a trophy as Policeman of the Year. That was the only reason things came out, she said. "No one would believe me." She had gone to a solicitor saying Det Garda McMahon was threatening her.

The solicitor told her he was the DPP. He was a McLaughlin of Main Street, Buncrana. Nothing happened.

In September 1999, Mr McMahon and Mr Lennon came to her flat. They were "plastered drunk" and threatened her and pushed her around. Mr Lennon hit her on the arm with a torch. She was told to watch what she said. She made a statement about that.

After the Point episode, before she left her Buncrana flat in 1994, she tape-recorded a conversation there with Mr Lennon and Mr McMahon. This referred to the Point Inn. She said the tape confirmed that Mr Lennon was aware of the planting of drugs at the Point Inn.

She said they were having a "good laugh" about the Point Inn. She said they said 'we'll need to get something really good now" as the Point was over.

She had also taped Mr Lennon during a journey to Rossnowlagh in a Garda surveillance van in which he talked of buying a bottle of vodka for her.

Ms McGlinchey also said she had told the Carty investigating team Mr McMahon had told her he and other gardaí had burned the Point Inn down.

The Court of Criminal Appeal has warned the State there must be full disclosure of all material relevant to the application by Mr Shortt for a certificate declaring a miscarriage of justice in his case.

After being told yesterday of other material having emerged, which had not been discovered, Mr Justice Hardiman, presiding, directed the filing of a corrective affidavit of discovery. He warned there would be very serious consequences if that did not disclose all the relevant material.