A disgraced former detective single-handedly destroyed a small Co Donegal market town by waging a campaign of harassment against a prominent family, it was claimed today.
One of the extended family, who was wrongly arrested for murder, insisted ex-garda sergeant John White's alleged catalogue of intimidation has left the once-busy Raphoe a ghost town.
Mark McConnell told the Morris Tribunal inquiring into Garda corruption, that his wife Roisin was hospitalised needing psychiatric treatment after being interrogated by Mr White.
Mr McConnell and his cousin Frank McBrearty Jnr were wrongly arrested and accused of killing cattle dealer, Richie Barron, in the town more than ten years ago.
Mr White allegedly mistreated Roisin McConnell during the botched Garda investigation into the death during which several members of the extended McBrearty family were wrongly arrested and questioned.
"He absolutely destroyed the town of Raphoe single handedly. It never has returned," Mr McConnell said of the ex-detective.
"It's like a ghost town. He summonsed left, right and centre, anybody that was related to Frank McBrearty, worked with him, anybody that was related to me.
"If you go into the town now at the weekend there's not one person in it. There's one man to blame and that's Sgt White and whoever gave him the orders to do it."
Mr McConnell said shortly after his wife was released from hospital he took her, along with friends, to his uncle Frank McBrearty Snr's nightclub in the town.
He claims Sgt White was inspecting the club at the time, in the early hours of March 17th, 1997, and pushed through the group telling Mr McConnell: "Get out of the f****** road."
He said, after replying that there was no law against dancing, that another officer, Garda John O'Dowd, muttered something about a warning and took a note.
Mr McConnell also claimed Sgt White knocked loudly at the front door of his house at 11.45pm, on April 15th, when his family were in bed, with a summons relating to the nightclub incident.
He asked Sgt White why he was calling to his home so late at night. "I said to him do you not realise my wife was in hospital and you're one of the reasons why she was in hospital," he told the hearing.
"He replied to me that your wife was in hospital for one reason and one reason only and that's guilt over the death of Richie Barron."
Mr McConnell said Sgt White and his colleague Garda O'Dowd, who was in the patrol car, left his home laughing. He said he had to take his wife and family away from their home, to his mother's house for almost two weeks, because of the incident.
"She wouldn't stay in the house. She's absolutely terrified of John White to tell you the truth. As far as my wife's concerned he's the man that caused her illness."