ARREST OF MICHAEL AND CHARLOTTE PEOPLES:MICHAEL AND Charlotte Peoples were arrested on the morning of December 4th, 1996 and questioned about the death of Ritchie Barron on the night of October 13th that year.
They had been out socialising on the night in question with their friends Mark and Róisín McConnell (Mrs Peoples's cousin).
Michael Peoples was arrested at 8am and taken to Lifford Garda station.
One hour later his wife was arrested and taken to Letterkenny Garda station.
From October a series of threatening phone calls was made to the Peoples's house, seeking to extort money for the caller's silence in relation to the death of Barron.
The Morris tribunal said these calls were reported to the Garda Síochána, which did not investigate them properly.
One of the calls was made from the home of a member of the force, and the gardaí used the calls as an excuse for the later arrest.
"The tribunal has come to the conclusion that nobody is sure why and for what offence Mr Peoples was arrested," the report stated.
"His arrest can be seen as a crude attempt on the part of the investigation team to put pressure on the chief suspects. This is a clear abuse of the power of arrest."
Mr Peoples was interviewed four times over a 12-hour period, by two alternating teams of two.
Nothing untoward happened during the interviews by Garda Pat Flynn and Garda Thomas Burke and Mr Peoples acknowledged he was properly treated. He thought the gardaí had made a mistake.
However, he claimed that during interviews with Det Sgt Michael Keane and Garda Philip Collins he was shouted at and abused during their first interview.
During their second interview he said he was offered photographs of Barron's autopsy. Garda Collins admitted he had autopsy photographs in his possession, but said he did not show them.
While Garda Collins was out of the room Det Sgt Keane picked up a metal leg of a chair, and Mr Peoples thought he was going to be assaulted with it, the report said.
The tribunal accepted that Mr Peoples was repeatedly called a "murdering bastard", or something similar, and stated that "this continuous and aggressive verbal abuse was calculated to make him give up information which it was believed he possessed."
Meanwhile, Charlotte Peoples had been taken to Letterkenny Garda station.
Róisín McConnell was also arrested and questioned there, where she was subjected to shouting and abuse in a neighbouring interview room.
Mrs Peoples was in poor health, and the arrest and subsequent questioning had a serious affect on her health. She asked the gardaí interviewing her to intervene in the questioning of Mrs McConnell, but they refused to do so.
The tribunal found Mr Peoples's account of his arrest was substantially true. His allegations about what happened to him during the second and fourth interviews were "an honest and truthful recollection", particularly with regard to Det Insp Keane shouting, walking around the room and calling him a "lying murdering bastard" or something of that nature.
The tribunal was also satisfied that Mr Peoples was threatened with being charged with murder, and told that he and his wife would receive lengthy custodial sentences and not see their child.
It was satisfied that Det Insp Keane took up the leg of a chair, but not prepared to make a finding that he did so with the intention of actively threatening Mr Peoples with physical assault.
Notes of the interviews were "not maintained accurately and properly, and no explanation is furnished for this deviation from proper procedure".
On May 6th, 1999 Mr Peoples was again arrested on the word of one Bernard Conlon, who claimed he and Mark McConnell had turned up at his home in Sligo and threatened him with a "silver bullet" for being prepared to give evidence in an after-hours drinking case against Frank McBrearty.
This was "yet another instalment of an appalling personal and family nightmare of engagement with An Garda Síochána," the tribunal said.
MAIN POINTS
Garda strongly criticised for arresting Michael and Charlotte Peoples over the death of Ritchie Barron. It found Mr Peoples's account of his arrest to be substantially true, including allegations that he was threatened in detention.