A Raphoe man was used as a "stooge" by a Donegal garda and his informer to provide false statements to gardaí in relation to the death of a cattle dealer, Mr Richie Barron, in October 1996, Letterkenny Circuit Court heard.
Yesterday Judge Pat McCartney acquitted Mr Noel McBride, Meeting House Street, Raphoe, saying the accused "was not a willing or knowing participant in the nefarious scheme of others". Mr McBride was charged with 15 counts of giving false statements, of wasting Garda time and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The trial, which had enlisted 44 Garda witnesses encompassing gardaí from "every Garda station in the north-west" and five civilian witnesses, was estimated to last three weeks.
It was brought to an end yesterday morning when Judge McCartney directed the jury of six men and six women to return a not-guilty verdict.
The court heard that Mr McBride was under extreme pressure from Mr William Doherty, a paid Garda informant, and Mr Doherty's handler, Garda John O'Dowd.
He was a vulnerable individual, with a low intelligence level and open to easy exploitation. It emerged that Mr McBride was arrested on November 29th, 1996, and held for eight hours in Letterkenny Garda station in relation to the theft of a television aerial some months earlier.
It was during this arrest that Mr McBride made a false statement to Garda John O'Dowd, alleging he had seen Mr Frank McBrearty jnr and Mr Mark McConnell in the car park of Frankie's nightclub on the night of October 13th and morning of October 14th, placing them close to the scene of Mr Barron's death. He had been told by Mr Doherty to say he saw the two men speaking to a doorman at the club and entering the pub farther down the laneway.
Gardaí investigating the case subsequently interviewed Mr McBride on four more occasions, in December, March, May and July 1997. He made statements on each occasion alleging he was given money by the McBreartys and urged to say nothing, and that he had been bought a bicycle.
It emerged that Mr McBride was at a christening in the neighbouring village, the Cross, Killygordon, on the night Mr Barron had died.
He initially denied he was in Raphoe on the night in question, but later said he was when Garda O'Dowd told him he had seen him there, the court heard.