Garda "Did Not Have the Skills" to Forge Letter from the DPP

Wicklow People
March 7, 2015

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/wicklowpeople/news/garda-did-not-have-the-skills-to-forge-letter-from-the-dpp-31037438.html

The supervisor of a garda accused of forging a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions has told her trial that the garda told him she didn't have the necessary skills to forge a letter.

Detective Inspector Frank Keenaghan said that he showed her the letter and 'told her to go away and think about it for an hour, but she was adamant and said "I couldn't have forged it," to which I said I wasn't accusing her of forging anything.'

Wicklow Detective Garda Catherine McGowan (48), who is based at Bray Garda Station, has pleaded not guilty to one count of forgery on January 15, 2009, at Bray Garda Station and two counts of using a false instrument at Bray Garda Station and at Harcourt Street Garda Station between June 21 and 22, 2011.

The instrument is alleged to have been a letter from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, dated January 14, 2009.

The investigation of Garda McGowan's handling of the case was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report, which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest in Garda McGowan's case was one of the clerics mentioned in the report

The letter read: "Dear Sir, I (illegible) to yours. In (illegible) the statement of the complainant…could not possibly form the basis of a prosecution given that the complainant's allegation of rape is only conjecture."

Det Insp Keenaghan told Alex Owens SC, prosecuting, that Superintendent Tom Conway informed him of the letter on April 6, 2011. He then called Gda McGowan into his office and asked her what she knew about it.

He told counsel that Gda McGowan said the letter was a copy of what she had received from the DPP and that she had delivered a copy of it to the Murphy Tribunal herself.

Det Inspector Keenaghan said that he asked Garda McGowan to think about it, 'because on the face of it, we were misleading the Murphy Tribunal, and this was now the time to talk about it and put things right'.

A forensic expert told the trial this week that the letter was a 'bad quality photocopied document'.

Inspector Michael Moore, who has completed forensic training courses with the US Secret Service and London Metropolitan Police and has 20 years' experience in the forensic field, testified that he was asked to determine if the letter, dated January 14, 2004, allegedly from the office of the DPP, was genuine or if it was produced using parts of other documents.

Insp Moore told Alex Owens SC, prosecuting, he found three different fonts used in the letter; there were misalignments on the left hand side and scan lines to suggest at least two other documents were used to produce the letter.

'The scan lines, or shadow lines, suggest a cut document was placed on a photocopier to get an image,' said Insp Moore, adding that it suggests three documents were used to produce the letter.

He said he used a transparent copy of another letter he was given which matched exactly to the top part of the letter in question. He said this means that another letter was used to create the top part of the allegedly forged letter.

Under cross-examination, he told defence counsel Patrick Marrinan SC that the letters were 'bad quality photocopied documents'.

Last week at the trial an officer of the Director of Public Prosecutions said that there was no file for a priest the detective was investigating for child abuse.

On day three of the trial Henry Matthews, a professional officer in the DPP's office, told the jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that his job was to assess garda investigation files and make decisions on whether or not to prosecute the cases.

He told Alex Owens SC, prosecuting, that in 2011 he was asked to check his office filing systems for a file for a priest whom Garda McGowan was investigating from 2007 after a Wicklow woman made an allegation of sexual assault against him.

The 2011 investigation of Garda McGowan's handling of this allegation was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report, which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest was one of the clerics mentioned in the report.

Mr Matthews said that in July 2011 he was unable to find a case file for a suspect with the same name as the priest for a charge of sexual offence.

The complainant in the clerical abuse allegation has testified that in late 2009 Gda McGowan told her she had sent a file to the DPP and the DPP had directed no prosecution.

Sergeant Diane Swift previously testified that during her review of the case Garda McGowan provided her with statements relating to the abuse case and a photocopy of a letter purporting to be from the office of the DPP.

Earlier the same week the alleged victim of clerical sexual abuse told the trial that she was angry when she found out that a file had never been sent to the DPP.

On day two of the trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court a 44-year-old woman from County Wicklow testified that in the 1980s she was the victim of a sexual abuse by a local curate from the age of 16.

In 2005 she met with Detective Garda Joanne Hennessy to discuss her allegations. In February 2006 she met the detective again and said she wasn't ready to make a formal complaint to gardai.

The following year she said she decided she was prepared to go ahead with a Garda investigation.

She contacted Det Garda Hennessy, who told her she had been moved to a Galway station. The detective arranged for Garda McGowan to contact the woman.

The woman met the second detective in March 2007. She told the court: 'The first thing I said was how much I was trusting her with this.'

She said that the only contact after this was through text messages and telephone calls up to September 2009 when she sent a text to the detective asking for an update.

She said Garda McGowan rang her back on her mobile and told her that the DPP had said there would be no prosecution against her alleged abuser.

'After that I had a melt down. I couldn't believe it. I really thought it would go somewhere. I went back to counselling. I had suicidal thoughts,' she testified.

She said as time went by she resolved to move on. In 2011 she was contacted by Sergeant Diane Swift, who was part of a special task force set up in the aftermath of the Murphy Report by the Garda commissioner to investigate how sex abuse cases were handled by the church and state authorities.

She said that she came to learn that the file on her allegations had not been sent to the DPP.

She told Patrick Marrinan SC, defending, that she was upset, disappointed and angry and agreed she felt that she hadn't received due process.

The court heard that the file was finally sent to the DPP in the summer of 2011 and that the DPP directed no prosecution of her allegations.

The trial, which is scheduled to last two weeks, continues before Judge Mary Ellen Ring and jury of six men and six women at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Wicklow People