Tell Them Daddy's Not a Murderer (Paperback)

In 1996, Frank McBrearty Jnr was arrested on suspicion of the murder of a local County Donegal businessman Richie Barron. In custody, McBrearty was abused and intimidated. Held against his will, he sat in the cold stark interrogation room and was subjected to a violent barrage of police questioning as senior Donegal Gardai tried to frame him for a murder that never happened. While a tumult of thoughts raced through his head, his overriding concern was not for himself, but for his young wife and children. In the months and years that followed, Frank McBrearty Jnr waged a legal battle, for wrongful arrest and harassment, against the Irish government and the Irish judicial system, which culminated in the Morris Tribunal; one of the most ground-breaking and publicised tribunals in the history of the state. Finally, in 2005 Frank McBrearty Jnr vindicated his name and was awarded - 1.5 million for damages against the state. While a legal battle continues to this day, Frank McBrearty Jnr fights his own demons as he tries to reconcile himself to the years that were stolen from him in a seemingly never-ending cycle of police intimidation, court cases, depression and ill-health. But the most lasting legacy of this heinous injustice however is the loss of his children's childhood and the innocence that was stolen from them as they witnessed the persecution of their family and their father by the so-called 'protectors' of the state. This is the story of a family - a family that has had the strength to carry on together and who have somehow - against the odds - picked up the pieces.