His death has been investigated by five pathologists, a coroner, a tribunal of inquiry and dozens of gardai. It has generated acres of newsprint, led to the exposure of serious irregularities and corruption within the Irish police force, and it will eventually cost Irish taxpayers something like €100m in legal fees and compensation.

But after all that, we still don’t appear to know who killed Richie Barron, the Donegal cattle dealer found dead on a country road near Raphoe in October 1996. Is it even certain how he died? Last week Barron’s death threatened to become a political football when Jim McDaid, a Donegal TD, rejected the Morris tribunal’s conclusion that it was a hit-and-run accident. “Morris seems to be convinced this was a motor vehicle accident, but this is not in keeping with the forensic evidence,” said McDaid, who is also a GP.

Fine Gael demanded that he withdraw these “scandalous” remarks, attacking them as a crude attempt to deflect criticism that Fianna Fail had not done enough to help the McBrearty family, who were framed by corrupt gardai for Barron’s death.

Understandably, the Barron family watches with frustration. They are considering asking the attorney-general to reopen the inquest, which returned an open verdict. Like everybody else, they want the answer to two questions: how did Richie Barron die? And who killed him? McDaid last week challenged the media “to re-enact the scene in accordance with the pathological evidence”. “I believe they will find it impossible to do so,” he said.

This is wrong, and does an injustice to Morris. Deep within his report’s 667 pages is a clear and precise conclusion as to how Barron died. The judge has also gone much farther than gardai in examining the role of several possible suspects.

BARRON was last seen after midnight on October 14, 1996, “staggering” and “swaying” down the road out of Raphoe, occasionally using a wall to keep himself upright. He was extremely drunk. Between 12.40am and 12.55am he was killed.

His body was found almost immediately afterwards, and the gardai were informed at 1.01am. Their response was indolent and negligent, as Morris put it. Padraig Mulligan, the garda supposed to be on duty in Raphoe, was drinking in a pub in Lifford with his off-duty colleague John O’Dowd. The gardai ignored the emergency call.

When Mulligan and O’Dowd finally arrived at the location where Barron died, they first overtook other cars at the scene, drove past the blood and a white blanket at the roadside, and only then stopped and reversed the car. This did not amount to driving through a crime scene, Mulligan told the Morris tribunal, because O’Dowd drove on the right-hand side of the road and the blood was on the left.

Not that other gardai had any intention of preserving evidence. There was no debris on the road, as one might expect after a car accident. So even though one officer found a chunk of Barron’s skin and hair, and news came through from Letterkenny general hospital that the cattle dealer was dead, police allowed heavy rain to wash away any clues.

Barron’s body was examined by Dr David Barry, a consultant pathologist at Letterkenny hospital. He found two basic injuries: a large, gaping V-shaped wound on the forehead, and a crushing of the scalp accompanied by fractures three inches above the left ear. He considered these injuries to be unusual for a road-traffic accident and said a blow from a blunt instrument appeared more likely.

The gardai should have immediately ordered a forensic post-mortem examination. Instead Barron was buried, and officers, acting on rumours that started at the dead man’s wake, decided to pin a murder charge on the McBreartys.

Five years later, on July 5, 2001, Barron’s body was exhumed and Professor John Harbison, the state pathologist, carried out the forensic examination that should have been held the day after the cattle dealer died.

Harbison’s view was as clear-cut as professional opinions tend to be. “I am of the opinion that the primary impact to Mr Barron’s skull was from a moving object . . . most likely a motor vehicle.” The movement of the car was indicated by scuffing on the forehead, he said.

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