Morris tribunal The wife of a man who claims he was mistreated while under arrest broke down yesterday as she told the Morris tribunal how her husband "bottled everything up", still had nightmares, and became withdrawn.
Mark Quinn was a publican in Raphoe, Co Donegal, at the time he was arrested on December 4th, 1996, on suspicion of being involved in the death of Richie Barron, who gardaí said had been murdered.
Mr Quinn told the tribunal this week that he was mistreated while in custody at Letterkenny Garda station, manhandled, shouted at, and shown a gun, bullets and postmortem photographs of Mr Barron.
Yesterday Donna Quinn said her husband was still suffering the effects and it affected their marriage for a long time.
His way of coping had been through alcohol, which was a way of shutting it away. They were naive and did not confront the issues when they should have, she said.
"We're still dealing with the effects of it today," she said.
Mrs Quinn said her husband never wanted to talk about it and became very withdrawn. In the pub he did not want to go into the bar as he felt people were talking about it and would go out the back instead.
"Since then he's never wanted to talk about it, he bottled everything up, and never really dealt with it, maybe only through alcohol," she said, and was then unable to continue as she broke down.
Mrs Quinn said her husband would talk only about parts of his experience, the main thing being the photographs.
"He had nightmares about the photographs and that still continues," she said.
Two years later her husband had not seen a doctor or counsellor, except for a six-week course in rehab for alcoholism. He was so low and felt really bad after the arrest and was not himself, she said.
"It caused a big strain on our marriage and on the business," Mrs Quinn said.
At that time, other people who had been arrested were taking legal actions. She suggested she should write his complaints down as he told them to her.
She said it was therapeutic but these notes were later given to a solicitor in their compensation case against the State.
Her husband was reluctant to make the complaint as he did not want to have anything to do with authority and relive everything again, Mrs Quinn said.
Later, retired Det Garda PJ Keating denied dragging Mr Quinn out of his car when he went to arrest him, as alleged.
Mr Quinn was properly looked after and questioned properly, he said: "He was never mistreated by me or anybody else while in my presence," Mr Keating said.
He said he would not bring a firearm into an interview room and nobody else would either. There was no shouting.
The tribunal continues today.