Detective Cleared of Forging Letter in Clerical Abuse Case

By Declan Brennan
Irish Examiner
March 14, 2015

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/detective-cleared-of-forging-letter-in-clerical-abuse-case-318210.html


A detective has been acquitted of forging a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the investigation of a priest accused of sexual abuse.

Detective Garda Catherine McGowan, aged 48, who is based at Bray Garda Station, had 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 was alleged to have been a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), dated January 14, 2009.

After a 14-day trial, a jury took just three hours to return unanimous verdicts of not guilty on all counts.

The State had alleged Garda McGowan had forged the letter to “hoodwink” gardai who were reviewing whether she had acted properly in investigating allegations of sexual abuse by a priest. This investigation was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report which investigated clerical sexual abuse. The priest in Gda McGowan’s case was mentioned in the report.

A woman from Co Wicklow told the trial that, in the 1980s, she sexually abused by a local curate.

In March 2007, she decided to go ahead with a garda investigation and met with Garda McGowan. She said the only contact after that with the garda was through texts and phone calls.

In September 2009, Garda McGowan told her that the DPP had said there would be no prosecution.

The woman said that, in 2011, she came to learn that the file on her allegations had not been sent to the DPP.

The State presented evidence of a copy of a letter, supposedly from the DPP, which stated that a prosecution of the priest would be “impossible” because of “conjecture” in the alleged victim’s statement.

The State’s case was that this letter was a bogus document and that Garda McGowan never sent the case file to anyone including the DPP, chief State solicitor, or her superintendent.