BARR TRIBUNAL: The chairman of the Barr tribunal yesterday said gardaí investigating an alleged arson incident involving John Carthy made serious errors by not making notes of his arrest or interview.
Mr Carthy later claimed that he was the victim of assault and ill-treatment during the three-and-a-half hours he spent in Garda custody in September 1998.
The tribunal is investigating events surrounding the shooting dead of Mr Carthy by gardaí in Abbeylara, Co Longford on April 20th, 2000.
Garda Turlough Bruen told the tribunal Mr Carthy was arrested in relation to the burning of the Abbeylara football team's mascot, an artificial goat worth £2,000, after receiving confidential and reliable information that he was responsible.
Under questioning from the tribunal, Garda Bruen admitted he made a number of errors by failing to gather more evidence before arresting Mr Carthy.
He also said he did not take any notes of the arrest or the interview and that no investigation file was opened.
A second garda who was overseeing the interview in Granard Garda station, Frank McHugh, said he was not paying "100 per cent" attention to events as he was leaving the interview to his colleague.
Chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Barr, said both gardaí had made "fundamental" and "serious" errors by not conducting the interview properly.
The gardaí also rejected a suggestion by Mr Patrick Gageby SC, representing the Carthy family, that they had sought to "bury" the incident by casting "a shroud of silence" around it.
Garda Bruen accepted that it was "irregular" that he had not taken notes, but said it was not physically possible given the speed and agitated way in which Mr Carthy was speaking.
However, there were brief details of Mr Carthy's stay recorded in custody records and a "morning report", which contains details of the previous day's events in the Garda station.
Garda McHugh said he did not have a view on whether the interview had been conducted in a professional manner and could not remember details of what was discussed during the interview.
Mr Carthy, who insisted he was innocent, was released without charge after Garda Bruen felt there was no substance to the allegations. He said that after checking with the source of the claims through a colleague, the allegations had changed and there was no eyewitness to the arson incident.
Following his stay in Garda custody, Mr Carthy claimed to a friend and a family doctor that he was subjected to assault and ill-treatment. However, a consultant radiologist in the Midlands Regional Hospital, who subsequently examined Mr Carthy, told the tribunal there was no evidence of any bodily harm following an X-ray
The two gardaí said the first they heard of any abuse allegations was two-and-a-half years later.
