Morris tribunal: Ms Adrienne McGlinchey told the tribunal yesterday that she found Assistant Garda Commissioner Kevin Carty very intimidating when she told him she wanted to withdraw a statement she made to the internal Garda investigation.
In 1999, Ms McGlinchey met members of the Carty investigation team several times.
They were investigating allegations of Garda corruption in Co Donegal.
Ms McGlinchey also told the tribunal that they had promised her immunity from prosecution and that no one would ever know she had spoken to them. She was shocked when they cautioned her.
The witness was answering questions at the beginning of her cross-examination after the completion of her direct evidence for 5½ days in public and two days in private.
Mr Paul Murray, counsel for Ms McGlinchey, asked if in 1999 she had wanted to withdraw a statement she made to the Carty inquiry.
Ms McGlinchey said she wanted to withdraw her statement after an incident in Rathmullen. She told two gardaí who were Carty inquiry members and they told her to get in the car and they would talk about it. They kept driving and she told them she did not want to go to Sligo. They would not stop and they drove to Sligo. They told her she could not withdraw her statement until she had spoken to Assistant Commissioner Carty.
"I met him and I found him very intimidating. He told me that a lot of money was spent on this investigation and that I couldn't pull out of it. He put a lot of pressure on me that time about Rathmullen," she said.
Mr Murray asked if she had come under pressure from Det Garda Noel McMahon at the time of making the statements.
Ms McGlinchey said he never left her alone. He was ringing, hanging up and telling her to shut her mouth.
"Between Kevin Lennon, Noel McMahon and the gardaí, they were putting me under pressure the whole time before I met my solicitor," she said.
Asked if Garda McMahon ever threatened her, she replied: "Yes, he did, yes. He told me that I'd be shot and that the IRA and everything would shoot me because I was doing this here for the gardaí, all this, and I would come out worse," Ms McMahon said.
Mr Murray asked if her solicitor, Mr Brian Gallagher, attended her meetings with the Carty team. Ms McGlinchey said she met Supt Hugh Cole and Supt J.F. O'Connor in Dublin. When Mr Gallagher left the room, Supt Cole suggested that she meet them without her solicitor as he kept interrupting them and it would take too long.
She said she then met them on their own. They were supposed to keep in contact with Mr Gallagher. She remembered when she met the team in Sligo and she asked if she should have her solicitor and she was told he would keep getting in the way.
Mr Murray asked what was she told was the purpose of the Carty investigation. Ms McGlinchey said she was told it was a fact-finding mission. They wanted to know every conversation she had with Garda McMahon and what he told her about different gardaí and other people.
She said they never took notes. She spoke to them for weeks and then a statement was written.