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Child Item

The Kerry Babies Case

irishguitarlad

What do you think of it? As the son of an Abbeydorney woman I take an interest in it as I kept on hearing about it growing up. I reckon the gardaí were covering up for someone when they blamed Joanna Hayes. Anyways, what's your opinion?

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[Deleted User]

Edgware wrote: »

Was society's attitude so strict that the poor girl had no option but to try and conceal her pregnancy to the bitter end?

No. Thousands of babies born out of wed lock. It is a modern convenience to blame society.

Bannasidhe

MikeOxsgreen wrote: »

How very judgemental yourself!

You can have compassion for both JH and her baby Shane, and any of the tragic stories of the time.

But there is no evidence she ran from "a corpse" or "a defenceless baby". Thats an assumption. Had Shane a probability of survival after JH's trauma? no, probably not.

But no one as far as I'm aware, knows how or when that baby died. Could the baby have survived with proper pre/post natal care ? Who knows. To postulate isn't a condemnation of JH.

But her particular circumstances were more advantageous than poor Ann Lovett for example. He was in a relationship with the father JL , they already had a daughter together. She was bring her up in the family home.

And that's not a heartless judgement on any girl going through such trauma alone, however you read it, nor a defence of the shocking treatment of women in our past.

You may think I am judgemental, I don't really care.
If I am then I am as judgemental as someone who was a young woman in Ireland at the time who listened to so-called experts on childbirth and women's bodies - most of whom were middle aged men - condemning Ms Hayes without a shred of evidence that she had committed any crime.
We had innocent until proven guilt back then too (allegedly) and here we are with poster stating she abandoned a defenseless baby as if this was a fact.
It is not a fact.
It is pure supposition without a shred of evidence.

Caquas

Bannasidhe wrote: »

And here we are again.
If there was even a shred of proof that Joanne Hayes was directly responsible for the death of her baby she would have been charged.
If there was proof positive she would have been tried and convicted.

It matters not a damn what the tribunal 'believed'. There is no proof of these crimes you are claiming she committed.

So we set up a Tribunal, chaired by a distinguished Judge, lawyers on all sides, witnesses under oath, all in public view and the glare of the media but thirty six years later, "it matters not a damn".

OK, pay up then.

p.s. Gerry O'Carroll is worse with his nonsense theory. If only he and his colleagues were really smart, they could get some compo too because the Tribunal lambasted the Gardai.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Bannasidhe wrote: »

And here we are again.
If there was even a shred of proof that Joanne Hayes was directly responsible for the death of her baby she would have been charged.
If there was proof positive she would have been tried and convicted.

It matters not a damn what the tribunal 'believed'. There is no proof of these crimes you are claiming she committed.

Well, they believed something Hayes said herself.

Bannasidhe

Caquas wrote: »

So we set up a Tribunal, chaired by a distinguished Judge, lawyers on all sides, witnesses under oath, all in public view and the glare of the media but thirty six years later, "it matters not a damn".

OK, pay up then.

Joanne Hayes was not charged with 'smothering' her baby.
Joanne Hayes was not tried for 'smothering' her baby.
Joanne Hayes was not found guilty of 'smothering' her baby.
That is a fact.

Despite all the hours being interrogated.
Despite all the investigative hours spent no evidence was found with which to charge Joanne Hayes.

So no, it doesn't matter what a tribunal believed. It matters what was proven in a court of law.

[Deleted User]

Bannasidhe wrote: »

You may think I am judgemental, I don't really care.
If I am then I am as judgemental as someone who was a young woman in Ireland at the time who listened to so-called experts on childbirth and women's bodies - most of whom were middle aged men - condemning Ms Hayes without a shred of evidence that she had committed any crime.
We had innocent until proven guilt back then too (allegedly) and here we are with poster stating she abandoned a defenseless baby as if this was a fact.
It is not a fact.
It is pure supposition without a shred of evidence.

Yet your response was supposition as well, without a shred of evidence to support your claim she ran from a corpse.

Montage of Feck

FFS, after everything that went there are posters on here making insinuations from their ivory towers.

Bannasidhe

MikeOxsgreen wrote: »

Yet your response was supposition as well, without a shred of evidence to support your claim she ran from a corpse.

If the baby was stillborn - it was a corpse.
If it died immediately after childbirth - it was a corpse.

The State charged the Hayes family with concealing the birth of a child but no charges in relation to abandoning a child, manslaughter of a child, child endangerment. Or to put it another way the investigating gardaí who were determined to charge her with the murder of baby John (on highly dubious evidence) accepted that baby Shane was dead when she fled - or they would have brought charges.

Yes - that is supposition, but supposition based on the events.
After all - whatever the Tribunal 'believed' Joanne Hayes faced no prosecution whatsoever in any way in relation to her child's death. She didn't even face serious charges.
Not even for the emotively phrased 'abandoning a defenseless baby' - which would be a crime, particularly if it resulted in the child's death.
The logical conclusion is there is zero evidence she abandoned any living child.

VillageIdiot71

Antares35 wrote: »

Was it ever ascertained how her own baby died or if it was stillborn?

No, the State Pathologist was unable to determine a cause of death for the Abbeydorney baby, or if the child was still born.

He did say that the umbilical cord was cut and not torn, which was significant as it was not consistent with testimony to the effect that the birth took place in a field alone with the cord being torn. It was more fitting with Bridie Fuller's testimony that she had assisted with the birth and cut the cord, with the birth occurring in the house.

AFAIK that was the only bit of physical evidence relating to the circumstances of the birth. As a point if detail, I don't know if the birth or death of the Abbeydorney baby was ever registered, or if the Coroner held an inquest. Typically, there is an inquest if a dead body is discovered and the cause of death is unknown. At the time, stillbirths were not registered - but I'd take it someone would have to determine that to be the case.

That said, the case was bizarre, so I'd expect folk just wanted to move on. The Garda investigation was a Keystone Cops affair, as the Tribunal Report stated frankly.

Caquas

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Joanne Hayes was not charged with 'smothering' her baby.
Joanne Hayes was not tried for 'smothering' her baby.
Joanne Hayes was not found guilty of 'smothering' her baby.
That is a fact.

Despite all the hours being interrogated.
Despite all the investigative hours spent no evidence was found with which to charge Joanne Hayes.

So no, it doesn't matter what a tribunal believed. It matters what was proven in a court of law.

If one were to convict and sentence Joanne Hayes, proof beyond reasonable doubt in a criminal trial would be required. However, I believe many things that haven’t been proven in that way and, like the Tribunal, I’m ready to believe her

Sardonicat

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

No, the State Pathologist was unable to determine a cause of death for the Abbeydorney baby, or if the child was still born.

He did say that the umbilical cord was cut and not torn, which was significant as it was not consistent with testimony to the effect that the birth took place in a field alone with the cord being torn. It was more fitting with Bridie Fuller's testimony that she had assisted with the birth and cut the cord, with the birth occurring in the house.

AFAIK that was the only bit of physical evidence relating to the circumstances of the birth. As a point if detail, I don't know if the birth or death of the Abbeydorney baby was ever registered, or if the Coroner held an inquest. Typically, there is an inquest if a dead body is discovered and the cause of death is unknown. At the time, stillbirths were not registered - but I'd take it someone would have to determine that to be the case.

That said, the case was bizarre, so I'd expect folk just wanted to move on. The Garda investigation was a Keystone Cops affair, as the Tribunal Report stated frankly.

As I posted earlier, a midwife actually testified and demonstrated that it was possible to sever an umbilical cord cleanly with her bare hands.

Leg End Reject

I haven't read the thread but I remember this case. I was still young but I remember father telling me not to be afraid to come to him if I got pregnant and that he would make sure I was never treated like that.

The treatment of women, babies born "out of wedlock" and the fathers of these children has left a dark legacy. Shame on those complicate.

I hope Joanne finds peace.

VillageIdiot71

Sardonicat wrote: »

As I posted earlier, a midwife actually testified and demonstrated that it was possible to sever an umbilical cord cleanly with her bare hands.

I think we need to be a little bit clear here.

The State Pathologist (not the coroner - I don't know if a coroner was ever involved in the case, as I posted earlier) reported that the umbilical cord was cut. Having examined it.

Which is different to a midwife doing a party trick, if this actually happened.

But no one knows. That's the actual point. There was conflicting testimony as to the circumstances of the Abbeydorney birth. And one piece of evidence from the Pathologist's examination of the body.

Sardonicat

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

I think we need to be a little bit clear here.

The State Pathologist (not the coroner - I don't know if a coroner was ever involved in the case, as I posted earlier) reported that the umbilical cord was cut. Having examined it.

Which is different to a midwife doing a party trick, if this actually happened.

But no one knows. That's the actual point. There was conflicting testimony as to the circumstances of the Abbeydorney birth. And one piece of evidence from the Pathologist's examination of the body.

The pathologist also stated it was not possible to cleanly sever the umbilical cord by hand. A midwife, who presumably was vastly more experienced in the breaking of umbilical cords than the pathologist stated and demonstrated otherwise. No rabbits were pulled out of a hat.

Sardonicat

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

I think we need to be a little bit clear here.

The State Pathologist (not the coroner - I don't know if a coroner was ever involved in the case, as I posted earlier) reported that the umbilical cord was cut. Having examined it.

Which is different to a midwife doing a party trick, if this actually happened.

But no one knows. That's the actual point. There was conflicting testimony as to the circumstances of the Abbeydorney birth. And one piece of evidence from the Pathologist's examination of the body.

There is conflicting evidence from people who were abused, harassed, threatened assaulted and sleep deprived into confessing to delivering, beating ,choking and transporting a dead baby 75km to dispose of it and none of it happened l. One of Joanna's brother's has a mild intellectual disability and the woman who testified she had delivered Shane had mental health issues. I could well believe that by the time of the Tribunal these two family members at least didn't know what had or hadn't happened anymore.

The fact remains that without a single shred of evidence this family were accused of murdering one baby. Do you honestly think if there was ANYTHING to suggest Joanna had in fact murdered or abandoned a living child, they wouldn't have jumped on it?

VillageIdiot71

Sardonicat wrote: »

The pathologist also stated it was not possible to cleanly sever the umbilical cord by hand. A midwife, who presumably was vastly more experienced in the breaking of umbilical cords than the pathologist stated and demonstrated otherwise. No rabbits were pulled out of a hat.

You can make your presumptions. I'll go with the medical evidence derived from the actual examination of the body.

Oh, and I've no idea what happened. There was very little physical evidence.

And the Garda ignored such medical evidence ax was generated, preferring to make stuff up.

As the Tribunal said, thirty years ago.

Call me Al

igCorcaigh wrote: »

I was the same age too, born in '73, I also remember the Ann Lovett case.
They were in the news from what I remember, but I didn't understand the context at the time.

It seems like another world now, but really not that long ago.

So many of the young women nowadays don't realise how dramatically life has changed for women. Kerry babies is only 36 years ago.
It was an alternate reality to anything they might accept nowadays.

Call me Al

Sardonicat wrote: »

There is conflicting evidence from people who were abused, harassed, threatened assaulted and sleep deprived into confessing to delivering, beating ,choking and transporting a dead baby 75km to dispose of it and none of it happened l. One of Joanna's brother's has a mild intellectual disability and the woman who testified she had delivered Shane had mental health issues. I could well believe that by the time of the Tribunal these two family members at least didn't know what had or hadn't happened anymore.

The fact remains that without a single shred of evidence this family were accused of murdering one baby. Do you honestly think if there was ANYTHING to suggest Joanna had in fact murdered or abandoned a living child, they wouldn't have jumped on it?

Cases like this prove how crucial DNA evidence has become. Her redeeming evidence was that, by chance, the two fathers' blood types were different.
Imagine if, by chance, it wasn't?
She would have ended up in jail..

Sardonicat

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

You can make your presumptions. I'll go with the medical evidence derived from the actual examination of the body.

Oh, and I've no idea what happened. There was very little physical evidence.

And the Garda ignored such medical evidence ax was generated, preferring to make stuff up.

As the Tribunal said, thirty years ago.

What I stated is not a presumption. Do you think a midwife would know less about cutting umbilical cords from a recently delivered baby than a pathologist who works with dead bodies? Or do you think midwives aren't sufficiently eminent to testify on umbilical cord cutting? His evidence that the cord was cut and could only have been cleanly severed by cutting was refuted by a qualified expert in the field. Maybe it was cut. Maybe it was torn, but his finding that it could only have been cut was incorrect.

Sardonicat

Call me Al wrote: »

Cases like this prove how crucial DNA evidence has become. Her redeeming evidence was that, by chance, the two fathers' blood types were different.
Imagine if, by chance, it wasn't?
She would have ended up in jail..

Her entire family would have ended up in jail!

JupiterKid

I remember the Kerry Babies investigation rather well, as I as about 9/10 years of age at the time and the story dominated the Irish media for weeks and months.

The Kerry Babies case, if anything, shows how pointing the finger at, and venting sneering judgment on, the vulnerable and the powerless - a young single mother, was always the easy way out in lieu of asking why society at that time drove into the despair and shame of having concealed pregnancies in the first place.

[Deleted User]

Bannasidhe wrote: »

If the baby was stillborn - it was a corpse.
If it died immediately after childbirth - it was a corpse.

The State charged the Hayes family with concealing the birth of a child but no charges in relation to abandoning a child, manslaughter of a child, child endangerment. Or to put it another way the investigating gardaí who were determined to charge her with the murder of baby John (on highly dubious evidence) accepted that baby Shane was dead when she fled - or they would have brought charges.

Yes - that is supposition, but supposition based on the events.
After all - whatever the Tribunal 'believed' Joanne Hayes faced no prosecution whatsoever in any way in relation to her child's death. She didn't even face serious charges.
Not even for the emotively phrased 'abandoning a defenseless baby' - which would be a crime, particularly if it resulted in the child's death.
The logical conclusion is there is zero evidence she abandoned any living child.

I'd a reply written, took about 15mins to disagree with several points, even wording, above. I'm after deleting it.

Certain things may be better left unwritten. I found myself dragging over an emotive trauma none of my business, that serves no one, and may only hurt someone if they read it, for what? "to score points".
Nope.

There may be another tribunal to quash the original. I hope there is, and Joanne and Shane get justice

Calina

[Deleted User] wrote: »

No. Thousands of babies born out of wed lock. It is a modern convenience to blame society.

I lived through the 1980s and I strongly disagree. The shaming of women and girls who got pregnant out of wedlock was horrific and yes, there were high profile cases of pregnancies being concealed and people having sudden unexplained short trips to the UK. It is nice privilege for you to dismiss society's responsibility here. The laundries were still operating were they not?

VillageIdiot71

Sardonicat wrote: »

A midwife, who presumably was vastly more experienced in the breaking of umbilical cords .

Sardonicat wrote: »

What I stated is not a presumption. .

I was going to point out that the pathologist isn't the person who said it was impossible to have a clean break. It was actually the Obstetrician who, IIRC, delivered Joanne Hayes first child in Tralee Hospital.

The pathologist just found the cord was cut, some would say based on a lifetime's experience of recognising when human tissue has been cut.

You are obviouly hopelessly committed to a blinkered view. You don't dismiss medical evidence because of heresay.

Can you actually link to any source that gives the context for your statement? Did your midwife just happen to have a fresh length of cord torn from a child she'd just delivered?

Tbh, what's got lost in the passage of time is the strong element of farce involved in this case.

KathleenGrant

I remember this case well but obviously maybe not all details. Did an aunt not state at the tribunal that she delivered the baby and it was stillborn, that the baby was not born outside? Maybe I am not remembering it correctly.

KathleenGrant

During the course of the tribunal Ms Hayes was cross-examined by multiple barristers for five days, the longest period a witness had ever been questioned in the history of the State.

She was asked 2,000 questions which ranged from when she lost her virginity to whether she used her daughter Yvonne as “ammunition” against Mr Locke.

Hard to believe

Bannasidhe

KathleenGrant wrote: »

During the course of the tribunal Ms Hayes was cross-examined by multiple barristers for five days, the longest period a witness had ever been questioned in the history of the State.

She was asked 2,000 questions which ranged from when she lost her virginity to whether she used her daughter Yvonne as “ammunition” against Mr Locke.

Hard to believe

And from all that no charges were ever pressed against her in relation to harming her own baby.
But posters here feel qualified to state categorically that she 'abandoned' him and/or 'smothered' him oblivious to the irony that they are doing exactly what was being done in 1984.

VillageIdiot71

I'll be vanishing from the thread after this because, tbh, I only came in as some folk were basically asking "was the case a bit more complicated than that", with the answer being "yes".

For anyone interested, a scan of Tribunal Report is here:
https://ptfs-oireachtas.s3.amazonaws.com/DriveH/AWData/Library3/Library2/DL035878.pdf

IMHO, you don't need to read it all to find that the matter was more John B. Keane than Nell McCafferty. The Garda behaviour was like a D'Unbelievables sketch.

KathleenGrant wrote: »

I remember this case well but obviously maybe not all details. Did an aunt not state at the tribunal that she delivered the baby and it was stillborn, that the baby was not born outside? Maybe I am not remembering it correctly.

It's a bit different to your recollection. An aunt said she delivered the birth and that it occured in the house, and the child was born alive but wheezy. She said some other stuff about what happened next, which you can read in the Tribunal Report if you want.

This conflicted with the testmony of the rest of the family. The Tribunal Report records that the family tried, unsuccessfully, to get the aunt declared mentally incompentent to prevent her from being heard.

vriesmays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmbpeJDjE4

whisky_galore

What was really weird was the repeated smashing of the Cahirciveen baby's gravestone.

What kind of sick fcuk goes out of their way to do that?