The Donegal publican whose son and nephew were wrongly identified as suspects in a murder that never happened has told the Morris tribunal that his family were "shamed out of this world" when they were arrested by gardaí a decade ago.
Frank McBrearty snr was arrested on December 5th, 1996, and held for 14 days on suspicion of intimidating witnesses.
"In a small town of 1,400 people, we were shamed out of this world," he said. "We were spat on. We couldn't go to the graveyard to my mother's grave. We couldn't go to Mass. We were attacked, assaulted. Not one of these people has been charged for anything. They haven't been charged. They haven't lost anything. I have lost nearly all my life's savings, banks and everything, to try and fight for the truth."
The Raphoe publican said he was arrested at his home and taken to Letterkenny Garda station. He said that gardaí did not give him a receipt for the items they removed during a search.
He alleged that a personal photograph was taken and never returned, and had been put on a wall in the Garda station with the words "The Don" underneath it.
Mr McBrearty said that during his arrest Sgt Joe Hannigan said "I was something similar to the drug barons and the Mafia", and during his trip by car to the Garda station, and when he was questioned, gardaí in the station "were banging on the table saying you're a hard man, you're not so hard a man down here". Det Garda Martin Anderson was "pulling himself up and down looking in at me" through a fanlight above the interview room door, he said, while other gardaí banged a table and tried to kick his chair from under him.
"But none of them hit me, they didn't abuse me that way, they didn't hit me or anything like that, but they would have been as well hitting me, because the things they said was terrible offensive," Mr McBrearty said.
"I tried to reason with them that we were all innocent people. They wouldn't listen to us." Mr McBrearty said he did not remember praying during his detention, but he did remember "crying a few times."
He said he was under "24-hour guard" while in hospital from December 5th to December 12th, 1996, and detectives refused access to his son and nephews.