A Garda sergeant said yesterday that he acted as a mediator when an inspector wanted an interview document forged.
Sgt Brian McEntee said Det Insp John McGinley requested him to contact Det Garda John Harkin and ask him to delete two questions from a memo of interview with Roisin McConnell when she was detained in Letterkenny Garda station on December 4th, 1996.
Mrs McConnell was one of 12 people wrongfully arrested in connection with the death in 1996 of cattle-dealer Richie Barron, who was later found to have been a hit-and-run victim.
Sgt McEntee said that Insp McGinley and Det Garda Harkin had interviewed Mrs McConnell.
About a year later, Insp McGinley had come into the office in Letterkenny Garda station one evening reading something. Insp McGinley was his boss and he was a detective garda working as the detective superintendent's clerk, he said.
Insp McGinley read aloud two questions - "Are you a good woman? Are you a religious woman?" - and asked him what he thought of that.
Sgt McEntee said he asked what that was about and Insp McGinley said they were inappropriate questions and that he was embarrassed about it, as he should not ask a lady about her religion. Insp McGinley asked him to speak to Det Garda Harkin and see if he would take the two questions out. Det Garda Harkin was a friend of his and he acceded to the request, he said.
He was asked by tribunal lawyer Peter Charleton SC why he did it. "I never thought it through. When I looked at the two questions, there looked to be nothing to it. I accept now that nothing should have been touched. There's no half-measures in it, that I shouldn't have acceded to the request, and I apologise for it," he said.
A few days later he spoke to Det Garda Harkin and told him Insp McGinley was unhappy with the two questions and asked him to take them out. Nothing was agreed.
Sgt McEntee said he never put the forged document into the system and was never asked to do so by anybody. Mr Charleton said that in the forged document the introduction was changed as well and a line was inserted.
Sgt McEntee said he was only asked about the two questions.
Mr Charleton said the alteration in the introduction raised the possibility that it was related to the alleged confession of Frank McBrearty jnr, which started off with a similar sentence.