Claims that a Garda station diary was altered to say that a garda was at work when a hoax call was made from his home were outlined to the tribunal yesterday by Mr Peter Charleton, SC, counsel for the tribunal.
He said five hoax and extortion phone calls were made to the home of Mr Michael and Ms Charlotte Peoples on the night of November 9th, 1996. Ms Peoples is a cousin of Ms Roisín McConnell, who is related through marriage to the McBrearty family.
The calls alleged that Mr Peoples had killed Mr Richie Barron, and the caller demanded up to £6,000 from him.
He said four calls were made between 8.08 p.m. and 8.23 p.m. and were traced to the phone line of Mr Patrick Doherty. His son, William, a garda informant, was later arrested in connection with the calls. The fifth call was made at 10.06 p.m. and was traced to the home of Garda John O'Dowd, then stationed at Raphoe. Telephone records also showed calls between the Doherty and O'Dowd phone lines on the days before and after the calls.
When Mr Doherty was arrested in connection with the calls, he said Mr Thomas Doherty had been an informant for Garda O'Dowd and could have made the calls.
He later blamed a garda informant, Mr Noel McBride, for the calls and said he and McBride had gone to Garda O'Dowd's house on November 9th. Mr Doherty claimed Mr McBride had made the fifth call. Mr McBride also denied making the calls.
Mr Doherty claimed Garda O'Dowd then got nervous and rang Garda Phil Collins at Raphoe station to see if anything had been reported. "He told me that Collins would fix him up in the book to cover him being in the station and not at the house when the call was made," Mr Doherty said.
Garda O'Dowd said he did not make any calls to the Peoples' home and had been in Raphoe Garda station until 10.30 p.m. (The call was made at 10.06 p.m.) He said he believed his phone might have been interfered with. He later said the call could have been made by Mr Thomas Doherty, who has since died.
Garda Collins said he had signed both himself and Garda O'Dowd off duty at 10.30 p.m. He later said he had signed them off at 10 p.m., but the entries were altered. Mr Doherty's statement about Garda Collins covering for Garda O'Dowd was "total lies", Garda Collins said.
In a file, Supt Kevin Lennon gave a number of reasons why a prosecution should not be initiated, including the fact that an admission had not been made.
Garda O'Dowd was later suspended from duty and was arrested in June 1999 in connection with the calls.
Mr Charleton questioned the delay by gardaí in getting telephone records for the night in question.
He said nothing may have happened at all, were it not for the fact that Mr Frank McBrearty snr had engaged a private investigator, Mr William Flynn, to investigate Mr Barron's death.
By May 1997 Mr Flynn had established that the first four calls came from the Doherty home. By July 1997 the investigator had established that the fifth call came from the home of Garda O'Dowd. It wasn't until March 24th, 2000, that gardaí had received the full records from Eircom.
If there was inefficiency by gardaí, it could involve a "wilful blindness" to look at facts which would undermine existing suspicions, Mr Charleton said.
He pointed to a Garda conference on the hoax calls and said this came into sharp focus "especially if it emerges that there was already a determination to arrest Michael and Charlotte Peoples at that point". The Peoples were arrested on December 4th, 1996, less than a month after receiving the hoax calls.
