A British document expert has said that a retired garda who worked for Donegal publican Frank McBrearty snr typed documents that made anonymous allegations of corruption against senior members of the Garda.
Dr Robert Radley, a forensic handwriting and document examiner, was brought back to give evidence as to who typed two documents making anonymous allegations against senior Garda officers by comparing them to other documents known to be the work of retired garda PJ Togher, who told the tribunal he was "absolutely not" the author of disputed documents.
"There is positive limited evidence to support the proposition that Mr Togher typed that document," Dr Radley told the tribunal. "I believe that on the evidence, it is more likely that Mr Togher typed it than somebody else who coincidentally has this combination of features."
The expert previously gave evidence at the tribunal that the signature on a disputed confession was not a forgery. Dr Radley said that he did not do a forensic linguistic analysis of the document, its grammar and syntax, but instead looked only at how the document was typed.
"I have noted things like that, but that is not the foundation of my report. Possibly that could be regarded as outside my sphere of expertise."
The expert said that particular features in document layout could show a pattern peculiar to a particular author. He had examined several documents typed by Mr Togher.
These included a report on a burglary typed by Mr Togher while he was a garda, a letter he wrote to Supt James Gallagher on July 5th, 2000, and a letter to a Sunday newspaper.
In the case of documents written by Mr Togher, he identified several features, including the use of double spaces, "unusual punctuation" and "almost peppering the document with full stops".