A garda has told the Morris tribunal that the whole issue of how a forged document of interview notes was substituted in the system had bamboozled her.
Garda Tina Fowley said she discovered a discrepancy in relation to notes of an interview with Róisín McConnell who was wrongfully arrested in 1996 in connection with the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron.
"The discrepancy that I discovered was that there was more contained in a typed version of the notes of interview than there was in the hand-written version," Garda Fowley said.
Det Garda John Harkin made a new statement to the tribunal recently to admit he removed two questions in notes taken from the interview with Mrs McConnell.
John McGinley, then a detective inspector and now retired, said he wanted the statement changed as he was embarrassed by the two questions asking Mrs McConnell if she was a good woman and if she was a religious woman. He asked Sgt Brian McEntee to act as a middleman to ask Det Garda Harkin to make the alterations.
The forged document was then substituted in the system although nobody has admitted to making the exchange.
Garda Fowley said whoever performed the substitution overlooked the existence of the typed notes of interview.
"This whole issue has bamboozled me in relation to what could have transpired. I still cannot form [ sic] how this substitution took place or how it was carried out," she said.
There was some conflict with Garda Fowley as to when Det Garda Harkin had officially given in the notes and the timing of it.
Yesterday, Garda Fowley said Det Garda Harkin coming forward had created a light at the end of the tunnel for her.
When she left the tribunal in July 2006, having given her evidence, she had a great deal of fear that maybe she was not believed and that that would have repercussions for her. "I will always be eternally grateful to Garda Harkin for coming with the truth."