His Honour Judge Peter Smithwick for the Tribunal: Mrs. Mary Laverty
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
A P P E A R A N C E S The Sole Member: His Honour Judge Peter Smithwick For the Tribunal: Mrs. Mary Laverty, SC Mr. Justin Dillon, SC Mr. Dara Hayes, BL Mr. Fintan Valentine, BL Instructed by: Jane McKevitt Solicitor For the Commissioner of An Garda Siochana: Mr. Diarmuid McGuinness, SC Mr. Michael Durack, SC Mr. Gareth Baker, BL Instructed by: Mary Cummins CSSO For Owen Corrigan: Mr. Jim O'Callaghan, SC Mr. Darren Lehane, BL Instructed by: Fintan Lawlor Lawlor Partners Solicitors For Leo Colton: Mr. Paul Callan, SC Mr. Eamon Coffey, BL Instructed by: Dermot Lavery Solicitors For Finbarr Hickey: Fionnuala O'Sullivan, BL Instructed by: James MacGuill & Co. For the Attorney General: Ms. Nuala Butler, SC Mr. Douglas Clarke, SC Instructed by: CSSO For Freddie Scappaticci: Eavanna Fitzgerald, BL Pauline O'Hare Instructed by: Michael Flanigan Solicitor For Kevin Fulton: Mr. Neil Rafferty, QC Instructed by: John McAtamney Solicitor For Breen Family: Mr. John McBurney For Buchanan Family/ Heather Currie: Ernie Waterworth McCartan Turkington Breen Solicitors For the PSNI: Mark Robinson, BL NOTICE: A WORD INDEX IS PROVIDED AT THE BACK OF THIS TRANSCRIPT. THIS IS A USEFUL INDEXING SYSTEM, WHICH ALLOWS YOU TO QUICKLY SEE THE WORDS USED IN THE TRANSCRIPT, WHERE THEY OCCUR AND HOW OFTEN. EXAMPLE: - DOYLE [2] 30:28 45:17 THE WORD “DOYLE” OCCURS TWICE PAGE 30, LINE 28 PAGE 45, LINE 17 I N D E X Witness Page No. Line No. WITNESS M EXAMINED BY MRS. LAVERTY 2 1 CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR. McGUINNESS 27 1 CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR. O'CALLAGHAN 34 29 CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR. COFFEY 47 8 CROSS-EXAMINED BY MR. ROBINSON 54 28 Smithwick Tribunal - 14 June 2012 - Day 103 1 1 THE TRIBUNAL RESUMED ON THE 14TH OF JUNE, 2012, AT 11 A.M. 2 AS FOLLOWS: 3 4 MR. HAYES: Chairman, to commence this morning, this 5 morning's evidence, there is a witness in Belfast who will 6 give evidence by video-link, and Mrs. Laverty is there to 7 examine him, and I think that is ready to proceed. 8 9 CHAIRMAN: Oh, good. Thank you very much. 10 11 MRS. LAVERTY: Good morning, Chairman. I am here with 12 Witness M, and he is ready to take the oath. He doesn't 13 wish to be facially recognised, Chairman, for security 14 reasons, so for that reason you will be stuck with seeing 15 me for the duration of his interview. 16 17 CHAIRMAN: That will be very nice. And what cipher is he 18 being known by? 19 20 MR. HAYES: M, I believe. 21 22 CHAIRMAN: M. Right. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Doyle Court Reporters Ltd. Smithwick Tribunal - 14 June 2012 - Day 103 2 1 WITNESS M, HAVING BEEN SWORN, WAS EXAMINED BY MRS. LAVERTY 2 AS FOLLOWS: 3 4 1 Q. MRS. LAVERTY: Now, I think, Witness M, that you spent your 5 career in Customs in the North of Ireland, is that correct? 6 A. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. 7 2 Q. And you were part of a new investigation unit set up in 8 about 1974? 9 A. That is correct, yes. 10 3 Q. And was there a particular distinction between your unit in 11 the Customs and Excise and, perhaps, previous ones? 12 A. That's correct. We were formed in 1974, in Belfast, and we 13 were responsible for the investigation of offences 14 throughout Northern Ireland. 15 4 Q. And I think that you were British civil servants, well, as 16 against Northern Ireland, shall we say, originally? 17 A. That's correct, we were British civil servants and not 18 Northern Ireland civil servants. 19 5 Q. And were you run out of a part of England, were you -- were 20 your bosses in England or were they in the north? 21 A. Yes, the headquarters was in London, and we had a regional 22 office which covered Glasgow, from Glasgow, and they would 23 come over from time to time as well. But the collection 24 and investigation unit at that time was operated solely in 25 Belfast to cover anti-smuggling, et cetera. 26 6 Q. Yes. And I think that you ended up very high up in the 27 unit, without identifying where you were in the hierarchy 28 of the unit, is that correct? 29 A. That's correct, I was a senior officer in the unit. 30 7 Q. Yes. And I think that in 1988, there was a change in Doyle Court Reporters Ltd. Smithwick Tribunal - 14 June 2012 - Day 103 3 1 monetary compensation amounts, which led to a lot more 2 monetary gain paid on exports, and that had a big impact 3 for Customs, is that correct? 4 A. That's correct. 5 8 Q. And how did that impact on people who were tending to 6 smuggle? 7 A. Well, it meant that if you purchased cattle in Northern 8 Ireland and you took them to the Republic of Ireland, you 9 would have to pay about a hundred pound per beast on each 10 animal as they crossed the border at the point of Customs, 11 both export and import. In this particular case, what they 12 did was, the load of cattle would be brought to the border 13 and they went into the yard on the border, and the cattle 14 in Northern Ireland are all tagged in the right ear and in 15 the Republic of Ireland they are tagged in the left ear, so 16 the first objective for the smugglers was to remove -- 17 cause the tags to be removed from the right ear of each 18 animal and then, subsequently, move them along a bit and 19 insert Republic of Ireland tags, which they had obtained 20 either from meat plants which were disregarding tags after 21 the animals were slaughtered there, or, from other people, 22 farmers who maybe were deceased or no longer required their 23 herd books, they got into the hands of them sometimes as 24 well. 25 9 Q. And were they camouflaged, the fact that there had been an 26 original tag? 27 A. Yes. Once they removed the tags from the right ear, that's 28 the Northern Ireland tags in the right ear, they then had a 29 bucket mixture, and they would have tried to cover it up 30 with all sorts of things to close off the incision in each Doyle Court Reporters Ltd. Smithwick Tribunal - 14 June 2012 - Day 103 4 1 right ear of the animal. Thus, the animal, when they had 2 the other tags inserted, it left they were all -- they'd 3 become Republic of Ireland cattle as soon as they got 4 across the -- [loss of sound] -- of the border. 5 10 Q. I think the smuggling was not confined to cattle, I think 6 there were other products smuggled as well? 7 A. There were other products as well. Pigs would have been a 8 thing at that stage. They qualified for the £10 per pig. 9 The only thing there was, with the cattle, we had some more 10 better control over them because each animal was in the 11 respective farmer's herd book and, therefore, he had to 12 account for it whenever the Department of Agriculture 13 people came along; where is his stock. And he just kept 14 the thing. With pigs, they had no identity; each pig 15 looked the same north or south of the border and, 16 therefore, that was the problem. So the pigs would come 17 into the yard, and once they got into the yard, the tractor 18 unit, which would normally be the Northern Ireland unit, 19 bringing us into the yard, they would then would put on a 20 tractor unit from the Republic of Ireland and drive out 21 with a lorry laden with pigs bearing the Republic of 22 Ireland registration plates. And if they were stopped then 23 up the road, they were coming from the person in the 24 Republic of Ireland. 25 11 Q. And I think fuel was another item that was -- 26 A. Yes, fuel was a big business as well, and they were -- 27 people from Northern Ireland, usually if the fuel was a 28 lesser cost in the south, each person would have went down 29 and got his car filled with fuel and back up again. But 30 then, other people decided that they would bring up loads Doyle Court Reporters Ltd. Smithwick Tribunal - 14 June 2012 - Day 103 5 1 of it into Northern Ireland and, therefore, there was a lot 2 of evasion of duty on the situation. 3 12 Q. When you talk about yards, bringing pigs or cattle into 4 yards, am I correct in thinking that these were the yards 5 of people who were actively involved in smuggling, who may 6 have been strategically positioned along the border 7 property-wise, is that correct? 8 A. Yes, in most cases the farms that we are referring to would 9 be south of the border. You would have part of the farm in 10 Northern Ireland, the dwelling house could be in the south 11 of Ireland and the yard itself could be in Northern 12 Ireland. So anybody going into trouble with, particularly 13 a vehicle laden with stuff into the Northern Ireland side 14 of the yard and then, subsequently, it would drive out the 15 other side, eventually to the Republic of Ireland.