The Smithwick Tribunal has been told that former RUC head John Hermon was asked not to attend the funeral of his most senior officer to die in the Troubles because he was not wanted there.
Chief Supt Harry Breen died in an IRA ambush along with Supt Bob Buchanan on 20 March 1989, minutes after leaving a meeting in Dundalk Garda Station.
The Smithwick Tribunal is investigating allegations that a garda tipped off the IRA of the meeting giving them a chance to set up the ambush.
Today, a statement by Mrs June Breen, the wife of the late Chief Supt, was read into the record.
She confirmed the then RUC Chief Constable was asked not to attend the funeral of her husband ‘as this instruction had been given to her by Harry on several occasions’. No reason was given for this in her statement.
On the morning of his death, Mr Breen told his wife, who was sick in bed, that were it not for the fact his deputy was off he would stay at home to mind her. Instead, he had to go to work and he left the house at around 8.10am.
She said that at around 3.15pm she remembers hearing that two men had been shot dead in Jonesboro, Co Armagh.
At the time she believed they were IRA members and she said she thought to herself ‘you are some mother's son but you are trying to kill army or policemen’. She did not realise it was her husband and a colleague for several hours.
Mrs Breen said at around 5.30pm she remembers starting to prepare chops for dinner and opened the garage for him to drive in when he got home.
When her husband was late, she thought to herself that he was busy dealing with the shooting of the two IRA men. About five minutes later, two RUC officers came to her front door and told her that her husband was dead.
‘It was very hard to take at the time and sometimes remains so,’ she said in her statement.
Sometime before he was killed, Chief Supt Breen went on television to display weapons recovered from the IRA in Loughall, Co Armagh.
Mrs Breen said she believed it was wrong that her husband had been asked to do that and she had been worried his safety before that.
On the night before he died, she said unusually for Harry he had sought a sleeping tablet because had had not been able to sleep for several nights.
Mrs Breen also said her husband was delighted when he managed to get Supt Bob Buchanan transferred to Newtownards, Co Down, and away from his position as Border Superintendent. Mrs Breen said she had secretly wished it was her husband that was being transferred out of Co Armagh.
Her statement also contradicted evidence given earlier in the tribunal by a former RUC Assistant Chief Constable, known as Witness 18.
He had said Chief Supt Breen was at a meeting on 16 March when he was told not to cross the border to meet with the gardaí.
That witness had claimed the two men disobeyed his order and died as a result.
Today, Mrs Breen said her husband could not have been at that meeting, as he was with her all day.
