Gardai faked interrogation, Tribunal told
A key Morris Tribunal witness today told of how two gardai pretended to interrogate her after a steel rocket was found hidden behind a panel under her bath.
Adrienne McGlinchey, 39, said two officers at the centre of corruption claims created a “charade” – banging on the table and shouting out in the interview room to make it look as though they were questioning her.
Despite large amounts of materials being found in her flat the alleged IRA informer told the tribunal she was never formally arrested and was released without charge.
The inquiry into alleged garda corruption in Co Donegal heard last week that Detective Garda Noel McMahon and Garda Superintendent Kevin Lennon blackmailed Ms McGlinchey into grinding up large amounts of fertiliser, which would later feature in “successful” garda finds of terrorist arms hauls.
Today while giving evidence for a third day at the public tribunal, Ms McGlinchey said that her flat was searched a few days after her flatmate’s birthday party in March 1994.
Their landlord came to fix a leak in the bathroom and alerted gardai when he found a rocket-like object – which was shown to the tribunal – hidden behind a panel under the bath.
Officers arrived at the flat and found two large cement bags full of fertiliser along with 47 other bags of ground and unground fertiliser and icing sugar on the premises.
Ms McGlinchey said she was at work when the discovery was made and found out about it when Garda Noel McMahon telephoned her.
He then who took her to his house until Superintendent Kevin Lennon arrived, where they told her she was to say nothing if questioned.
“I was to say nothing to nobody,” she told the tribunal. “I was to say absolutely nothing.”
The blonde 39-year-old said the two men then took her to the flat where gardai were carrying bags of fertiliser out, and upon walking into the flat noticed her friend’s birthday cake stuck to the ceiling.
“I remember walking in the door, looking up and seeing Yvonne’s birthday cake was stuck to the ceiling,” she said, adding: “I remember thinking ‘How did that get up there?’ ”.
Ms McGlinchey said she was then taken to a garda station where Garda McMahon and Superintendent Lennon tried to make it look as though they were questioning her about the raid.
She said they brought her magazines, coke and polo mints and that the three sat around reading until another garda entered the room who “had this look about her”.
“Kevin Lennon said he was going to bang on the table and shout something,” Ms McGlinchey said.
“It was just a charade,” she added. “Then we would just carry on reading the newspapers.”
Ms McGlinchey said the officers persuaded her to make complaints about Superintendent Lennon’s mannerisms, but said she could not remember what she was told to say.
She claimed that at no point was she formally arrested following the search, and was released without charge.
Ms McGlinchey also told of how the officers made her put a padlock on her bedroom door before the party because they were concerned people would see the large amounts of fertiliser she had been grinding there for Lennon and McMahon.
She said that when she told Mr McMahon she was having a party at the flat he started “going mad” and that a lock was later put on the door.
Ms McGlinchey told of how Superintendent Lennon and Detective Garda McMahon used a garda surveillance van to transport explosives to Rossknowlagh, Co Donegal in 1994.
She said that during the journey the van was stopped at a checkpoint but was allowed to pass through, and remarked that none of the gardai questioned could remember seeing three people pass through the checkpoint the night before an explosives find.
The tribunal was shown an RTE television report on the high-profile discovery, showing piles of sacks containing fertiliser.
Shortly afterwards she told the tribunal: “My brain was screwed with fertiliser.”
Ms McGlinchey also said that a warning she gave Noel McMahon’s wife Sheenagh “definitely wasn’t a threat”.
She said that when she warned Mrs McMahon to watch for herself and her children it was because Superintendent Lennon had told her to go down.
She denied that much of her evidence was convoluted due to her “innate sense of mischief”.
The Morris Tribunal is investigating allegations of terrorist bomb-making, arson, the mystery death of a cattle dealer and a series of arrests, as well as the garda treatment and alleged harassment of the McBrearty family of Co Donegal.
The tribunal will sit in private for most of tomorrow and will open again to the public on Thursday.
