Whistleblower accused of ‘hitching on to McCabe’s story’

“YOU were obviously keen to hitch your wagon to Sergeant McCabe’s train, would that be fair?”

“No,” was Garda Keith Harrison’s brief reply to the lawyer representing the Garda Commissioner.

On the second day of the Garda whistleblower’s appearance before the Disclosures Tribunal, his mounting frustration at times during the crossexamination process was most transparent.

Comparisons with that other Garda whistleblower, Maurice McCabe, appeared to be a particular source of annoyance to Gda Harrison.

Representing the Garda Commissioner, Mícheál P O’Higgins SC asked whether hitching his wagon to Sgt McCabe’s train in 2014 had not been the purpose of the “lobbying” Gda Harrison had “carried out, going on TV, radio and giving interviews seeking to be included in submission and in the tribunal”?

Gda Harrison’s tone rose amid his incredulity.

“Are you suggesting I did this just to get on the television?” he asked.

“When did the lightbulb go off in your mind that you were, if you like, a Maurice McCabe?” Mr O’Higgins said.

“I don’t see myself as Maurice McCabe,” the garda said firmly. “I am Keith Harrison and I am my own person and I will make up my own mind and I will do things the way I see is best.”

‘Ridiculous’

Mr O’Higgins said that because of Gda Harrison, his partner Marisa Simms was now “bound to this ridiculous story” that she misunderstood what he meant when he said she would get burned in an argument. Gda Harrison rejected this.

Ms Simms had told the tribunal earlier this week that she would prefer if she did not have to be there.

She had also agreed in her evidence to the tribunal that she and Gda Harrison had a “turbulent” relationship.

Yesterday, Gda Harrison told the inquiry the Garda Pulse database “was similar to a social media site” a decade ago, in explanation for why he had looked up Ms Simms on the system in May 2008, before their relationship began.

He claimed there was a common practice of gardaí looking people up on Pulse but this had since ceased and it was possible he had looked “out of a sense of curiosity”.

He explained that in 2011, when they began their relationship, he “had a fear that somebody was going to find out” about it. Martin McDermott, a brother of Ms Simms, was then facing homicide charges following the death of Buncrana-based Garda Gary McLoughlin.

Gda Harrison said he believed he was “closely monitored by senior colleagues” and just wanted to see who was looking at them. “The checking-up is your checking-up. Nobody else,” tribunal chairman Peter Charleton interjected.

Mary O’Donnell, a receptionist at An Chuirt hotel in Gweedore, said she received a telephone call from Gda Harrison the night of Ms Simms’s sister’s wedding in October 2013, claiming he was concerned and wanting to know if she was in the hotel. Ms O’Donnell said she told Gda Harrison the information was confidential but he identified himself as a garda, and said he was concerned about Ms Simms’s safety. After speaking to Ms Simms’s mother, the receptionist reported the call to gardaí and a detective called, asking her to make a statement, but she did not wish to do so.

The hearing continues on Monday.

The Garda Pulse database was ‘similar to a social media site’