Morris tribunal:A former superintendent has said that he was concerned about the tensions in Raphoe when he took over as head of the Letterkenny Garda district in February 1997, four months after the death of cattle dealer Richie Barron.
"You could smell the blood in the air," former Supt Kevin Lennon told the inquiry. "There was two factions in Raphoe, and those two factions were at loggerheads. There was always the risk of retribution."
Gardaí wrongly treated the hit-and-run death of Mr Barron as a murder inquiry and 12 innocent people were arrested as a result.
One of those arrested, Frank McBrearty snr, claims gardaí harassed his family and attempted to drive him out of business after the arrests. The tribunal is examining the allegations.
Mr McBrearty says more than 100 district court summonses were served against him, his business, his extended family and employees in 1997 and early 1998.
Most related to breaches of the licensing laws, but Mr Lennon said the law was enforced fairly and Mr McBrearty got no special treatment.
The DPP withdrew all charges in July 2000.
Mr Lennon said that there was a mindset among certain gardaí against the McBrearty family and cited as an example a photograph of Mr McBrearty, which he saw in an incident room in Letterkenny Garda station, which was labelled "The Don". "I didn't like it and I took it down and I tore it up."
He had prepared a report on the family which was used in an affidavit in response to Mr McBrearty when he sought a High Court injunction to stop excessive Garda inspections, but he had not prepared the affidavit.
Supt Lennon said he was so swamped with work as Letterkenny superintendent, including eight rapes reported within a seven-week period and cross-Border policing, that he did not have time to devote to allegations of Garda harassment.
But Mr Lennon said he believed the inspections of which Mr McBrearty complained were justified because of public order problems in Raphoe.