A PUBLICAN nodded in agreement when detectives suggested he had started the fatal fire which killed his wife and a toddler, a murder trial jury heard yesterday.
Det Sgt Robert McNulty said Mr Francis McCann broke down and cried and then nodded in agreement when it was put to him during questioning that he started the fire at his home in Rathfarnham, Dublin.
He was giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court on the 27th day of the trial of Mr McCann (36), who has denied the murders of his wife, Esther (36), and an 18 month old baby, Jessica, at the family home at Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham, on September 4th, 1992.
The jury has heard that Jessica was a blood relative of the accused but not a child of his marriage. The prosecution has claimed that Mr McCann arranged the fatal fire because he did not want to tell his wife why the Adoption Board had refused the couple's application to adopt Jessica.
The jury has also heard that Mr McCann, who owned the Cooperage Pub in Blessington, Co Wicklow, had complained to gardai that he had received threatening phone calls to his pub and home.
Det Sgt McNulty said he interviewed Mr McCann at Tallaght Garda Station on November 4th, 1992. He told him he was investigating an explosion at Butterfield Avenue and the two deaths.
Mr McCann told the gardai he had nothing to say and wanted to see his solicitor. Later, Mr McCann was visited in the station by his brother, Bernard, and by his solicitor.
In further interviews that day, Mr McCann refused to answer any questions about the explosion and the deaths.
Det Sgt McNulty said that at 10.40 p.m. the next day, he and Det Garda Maurice O'Connor interviewed Mr McCann again.
Mr McCann admitted making threatening phone calls to a pub in Wicklow and it was put to him that he had received no phone calls or threats himself. Mr McCann became upset and replied. "I had to make it look that way."
He also nodded when he was asked if he had sent a Mass card to himself and he admitted making entries in a phone book in the Cooperage.
Det Sgt McNulty said Mr McCann nodded in agreement when he was asked if he had Painted the slogan, "Burn you bastard" at the rear of the Cooperage.
He said he put it to him that the gardai were aware of a problem with a young girl and that he had been the father of the child and Mr McCann replied that his wife, Esther, was aware of that.
When Mr McCann was asked if the Adoption Board gas aware of this and had refused to let him and Esther adopt Jessica, he replied, "It was all such a horrible mess. It had to be sorted out."
Det Sgt McNulty said he put it to Mr McCann that he had started the fire and Mr McCann broke down and cried, then nodded his head in agreement.
He said Mr McCann cried for some time and Det Sgt O'Connor tried to console him and said. "It's for the best, we knew all along."
Cross examined by Mr Barry White SC, for Mr McCann, Det Sgt McNulty agreed the interrogation was not "an afternoon tea table event".
"Mr McCann was arrested for causing an explosion at his home resulting in the deaths of his wife and daughter. I was there to establish the truth," he said.
Det Sgt McNulty said the interview was carried out, "in a proper manner at all times".
Asked by Mr White if he was calling, "like many others shouting from the rooftops" for abolition of the right to silence, Det Sgt McNulty replied. "No, I believe in the right to silence."
He rejected a suggestion that I the interrogation was, "designed to break Mr McCann".
Earlier, Mr Justice Carney told the jury that during almost three weeks of legal argument in their absence he had made certain rulings as a result of which certain material would be admitted in evidence.
The trial before Mr Justice Carney continues today.