A solicitor has told the Morris tribunal that it was unusual for a Garda sergeant to be named as a defendant in High Court proceedings, along with the State and others, when Raphoe publican Frank McBrearty snr sought an injunction to stop what he alleged was a campaign of harassment directed against his family business.
"That was unusual, I remember it was unusual at the time," Ken Smyth told the tribunal, which is dealing with allegations of Garda harassment made by the extended McBrearty family and the effectiveness of the Garda Complaints Board in dealing with complaints by the family and others between 1997 and 2001.
"I think it really went back to that the client said that Sgt White in particular . . . was the person who was putting his head above the parapet, making their lives the most difficult," Mr Smyth said.
The High Court application was adjourned in July 1997 after an "understanding" was reached that if proceedings were dropped, "that the harassment would go away". Mr Smyth however said the frequent inspections of Mr McBrearty's nightclub began again a few months later, in September 1997, when multiple summonses were again served against the McBrearty family.
The McBreartys complain that as a result, they had to fight more than 100 summonses in the District Court for three years until they were withdrawn by the DPP in 2000. The majority of complaints related to summonses served against the Parting Glass nightclub, Mr McBrearty's licensed premises.
Others related to alleged traffic and public order offences.
Mr Smith said it was not true there was a campaign to discredit gardaí in Co Donegal, as alleged in an internal Garda document issued in February 1998.