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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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Caquas

The DNA evidence has added nothing to our knowledge. The Tribunal established that Joanne Hayes was not the mother of the Cahirsiveen baby and rubbished the Garda attempts to show otherwise. Of course now that the High Court has issued a bogus declaration dismissing these findings, officially we are supposed to be back at square 1.

As for the "now we'll never know" piece: what do we need to know?

Your answer to your own question is very telling. The central issue is who stabbed a baby to death and dumped his body in the sea? DNA evidence has been in use in courts since the late 1980s but it was only a few years ago that the Gardai brought forward this evidence. Why? You just shrug your shoulders but if our values were in order, we would have pursued that issue. Instead, the Gardai were afraid to touch it and the media were only interested in the Abbeydorney story.

We do know what happened Joanne Hayes' baby - the Tribunal's finding are clear on that point but the bogus court declaration last week allows everyone off the hook.

The Tribunal was supposed to find out how an entire family gave detailed statements that were proved, by a combination of forensic evidence, local testimony and basic common sense, to be untrue. What the Judge did, after permitting a prolonged and, even by the standards of adversarial cross-examination which is the basis of our trial system, excessive and unnecessary interrogation of a young woman about the most intimate details of her personal life, was to cherry-pick elements of the statements and accept them as true while discounting the more far-fetched ones.

The cross-examination of Joanne Hayes was excessively intrusive and should have been held in private (despite inevitable media objections) but the rest is utter nonsense and grossly unfair to a distinguished judge and typical of what you will have read in the media. Conveniently and not concidentally, the judge has passed away so the coast is clear for all kinds of defamatory attacks. If you read the report, you will see his meticulous analysis of all the evidence that was presented at the Tribunal (and, yes, the cross-examination by Garda lawyers of Joanne Hayes was excessively intrusive but it allowed the judge to dismiss the Garda case against her).

No, she didn't stab her baby, he said, but she did choke it to death. Where was the evidence for that?

You need to read the report.

Joanne Hayes got into a panic and as the baby cried again she put her hands around its neck and stopped it crying by choking it (22/662 to 665) and the baby did not breathe again (40/144 to 156). At some stage during the course of these events, Joanne Hayes used the bath brush from the bathroom to hit the baby to make sure that it was dead. None of the family tried to stop Joanne Hayes from either choking or hitting the baby (Appendix K, No. 6 and No. 10).

The reference numbers are to the Day of the hearing followed by the number of the question. Appendix K are the statements to the Gardai. The Tribunal analysed the Statements to the Gardai particularly carefully and it demolished the allegations of Garda brutality by the Hayes family.

There's no mystery to how the Judge treated these statements. He explains it in his 100 page report but it was a complicated process because the Hayes family all told lies. Of course, the essence of their problem was that they concealed the birth and death of an infant. That is indisputable, as is the fact that they lied to Gardai who made initial inquiries after the murdered Cahersiveen was found.The Gardai became convinced they had found the culprits for the Cahersiveen baby's murder with disastrous consequences.

Very reluctantly, Judge Lynch answered the Magill article in detail because he was the subject of a campaign of media vilification. The low point was a Late Late discussion in which Joanne Hayes talked about her (ghosted) book and then a series of well-known journalists attacked the conduct of the Tribunal and its findings. At that stage, there was no Broadcasting Authority to hear a complaint against such a one-sided discussion. Of course, the whole intent now by everyone supporting the Hayes family is to shut down discussion and to wipe their record clean without further ado.

Certainly, the Tribunal attracted protests from strident feminists, outraged at the treatment of a woman at the hands of an "all male court", and who paraded and placarded noisily outside the courthouse. But there were also several others, memorably described by Nell McCafferty as the solid respectable middle-class women of Tralee who went in their Sunday best to the hearings to show support for the Hayes family by their calm and dignified presence.

This is true and very far from the impression that Kerry in 1984 was some sort of hillbilly patriachy which the media and some posters here are portraying.

Note how the women were the dominant figures in the Hayes family, including Bridie Fuller who refused to go along with the lies Mrs. Hayes concocted so they tried to have Bridie Fuller declared mentally unfit!

Call me Al

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Could it be argued they were really old fashioned??....as burying unborn babies in killens went on till the 70s near my fathers homeplace (idk when church restrictions ended on burying unbaptised babies?)

Still see odd bunchs of flowers appear there,sad to think in a few years,noone will remember these

Blaaz,
Other than your "burying unborn babies" line, you're correct it wasn't uncommon in rural Ireland at least into the 60s that I know of for certain, that stillborn babies or babies who died quickly after birth and thus who hadn't been baptised, to be buried on family land.
There were no official christian burial places for unbaptised babies in Ireland. They were in limbo until such time as deemed otherwise..
I've no idea what happened these dead newborn babies in cities when these types of births happened.

Call me Al

Frankie Machine wrote: »

I do remember this case as I was a teenager at the time.

I remember my parents speaking at home with great compassion for the babies and for Joanne Hayes in this case, and also, separately, for Ann Lovett.

I also remember a neighbour at the same time who got pregnant at 15-16 and brought her child up in her parents' home without any big fuss whatsoever. A small, rural place.

We were no beacon of progressiveness, but this awful story tells much more about attitudes in that part of Ireland than it does about Ireland.

I think it's more about the views of individual families in every parish in the country.
Some parents or grandparents viewed any babies born out of wedlock as a mortal sin, a shame on the family, and the ruination of the woman. They were fallen women in their eyes.

But other family units were more accepting of their children's behaviours, they accepted them no matter how others regarded the behaviours. They were able to disregard and rise above the sneering from the neighbours who looked down their noses.
At home (extremely rural) we had families of both these types in my village alone.
It's just the way people were.

Snickers Man

Caquas wrote: »

The central issue is who stabbed a baby to death and dumped his body in the sea?

That should have been the central issue for law enforcement, in the first instance the Gardai, but it was NOT the central issue for the enquiry, whose frame of reference was into: "The facts and circumstances leading to the preferment..of criminal charges against [the extended Hayes family]..in connection with the death of an unnamed male infant and subsequent events which led to withdrawal of those charges.."

A second term of reference demanded an inquiry into: "allegations made by [the Hayes family] concerning the circumstances surrounding the questioning and the taking of statements from those persons".

The Tribunal was not a criminal trial. It asked why were these people charged and why were the charges then withdrawn? In the first instance it is clear that they were charged because they confessed to stabbing a baby, and the charges were withdrawn when it was realised that the stabbed baby couldn't have been Joanne Hayes' and that she had in fact given birth to another baby altogether.

So why did they confess to something they had nothing to do with? The Judge's findings included (all numbers relate to the conclusions in the report, a copy of which I presume you have):
34. "The confessions...contain large elements of the truth of what happened to the Tralee Baby transposed to the Caherciveen baby, with additions as to stabbing and a journey to fit involvement with the Caherciveen Baby. "

How did the judge work out for himself which bits were true and which were not, given that the central forensic fact was that Joanne Hayes' baby had NOT been stabbed, although the statements said it had?

How, for instance, could he determine (16) "Joanne Hayes put her hands on the baby's throat to stop it crying by choking it, as a result of which it died" or that (17) "[she] also hit the Tralee Baby with the bath brush"
Where is the evidence for any of that? Other than the statements which are so clearly unreliable?

He's effectively saying that the parts of the statements that have been debunked by scientific evidence are untrue but everything else can be taken as gospel. Or do you disagree with that statement of the obvious?

Despite saying (28) "There was no assault on, or physical abuse of, any member of the [family] by any member of the Gardai" he nonetheless concluded (29) "The obvious belief of the Gardai in the involvement of ..[the family] with the Caherciveen Baby gave rise to pressure on the [family] to confess to such involvement" and so (33) "As a result of the foregoing pressure and their guilty consciences....[the family] signed confessions to involvement with the Caherciveen Baby which are not true"

Well we all knew they weren't true before the Tribunal. Which was why it was convened to find out how they were produced and signed. The Judge, while stating obviously enough that (4) "The Caherciveen Baby is not the child of Joanne Hayes" nonetheless stated, without credible evidence, that she had killed her own baby.

If his report was as damning to the Gardai as you claim, how come none of them were disciplined for the "pressure" they had exerted to produce patently false statements?

Caquas wrote: »

DNA evidence has been in use in courts since the late 1980s but it was only a few years ago that the Gardai brought forward this evidence. Why? You just shrug your shoulders but if our values were in order, we would have pursued that issue. Instead, the Gardai were afraid to touch it and the media were only interested in the Abbeydorney story.

There is a difference between a criminal investigation and a tribunal of enquiry. The cocking up of the former necessitated the latter. Which was also cocked up, IMHO.

Caquas wrote: »

We do know what happened Joanne Hayes' baby - the Tribunal's finding are clear on that point but the bogus court declaration last week allows everyone off the hook.

The declaration removed any lingering doubt that the Hayes family should ever have been "on the hook" as you put it. It in no way pardons whoever was responsible for the other baby's death. Are you suggesting the Hayes family should be "re hooked" for something? What grounds or evidence do you have for that?

Caquas wrote: »

The cross-examination of Joanne Hayes was excessively intrusive and should have been held in private (despite inevitable media objections) but the rest is utter nonsense and grossly unfair to a distinguished judge ......If you read the report, you will see his meticulous analysis of all the evidence that was presented at the Tribunal

See the points made above. If there is any "evidence" produced in the report for choking or beating a baby with a bath brush, apart from the utterly unreliable "statements to police" whose implausibility sparked the entire Tribunal in the first place, I appear to have missed them. Maybe you can point out wherever they may be?

Caquas wrote: »

You need to read the report.

I need to read the report?

Caquas wrote: »

Of course, the whole intent now by everyone supporting the Hayes family is to shut down discussion and to wipe their record clean without further ado.

Wow!!! You're still implying that their record is unclean??

:eek: :eek:

Shame on you!

Caquas

Snickers Man wrote: »

That should have been the central issue for law enforcement, in the first instance the Gardai, but it was NOT the central issue for the enquiry, whose frame of reference was into: "The facts and circumstances leading to the preferment..of criminal charges against [the extended Hayes family]..in connection with the death of an unnamed male infant and subsequent events which led to withdrawal of those charges.."

A second term of reference demanded an inquiry into: "allegations made by [the Hayes family] concerning the circumstances surrounding the questioning and the taking of statements from those persons".

The Tribunal was not a criminal trial. It asked why were these people charged and why were the charges then withdrawn? In the first instance it is clear that they were charged because they confessed to stabbing a baby, and the charges were withdrawn when it was realised that the stabbed baby couldn't have been Joanne Hayes' and that she had in fact given birth to another baby altogether.

So why did they confess to something they had nothing to do with? The Judge's findings included (all numbers relate to the conclusions in the report, a copy of which I presume you have):
34. "The confessions...contain large elements of the truth of what happened to the Tralee Baby transposed to the Caherciveen baby, with additions as to stabbing and a journey to fit involvement with the Caherciveen Baby. "

How did the judge work out for himself which bits were true and which were not, given that the central forensic fact was that Joanne Hayes' baby had NOT been stabbed, although the statements said it had?

How, for instance, could he determine (16) "Joanne Hayes put her hands on the baby's throat to stop it crying by choking it, as a result of which it died" or that (17) "[she] also hit the Tralee Baby with the bath brush"
Where is the evidence for any of that? Other than the statements which are so clearly unreliable?

He's effectively saying that the parts of the statements that have been debunked by scientific evidence are untrue but everything else can be taken as gospel. Or do you disagree with that statement of the obvious?

Despite saying (28) "There was no assault on, or physical abuse of, any member of the [family] by any member of the Gardai" he nonetheless concluded (29) "The obvious belief of the Gardai in the involvement of ..[the family] with the Caherciveen Baby gave rise to pressure on the [family] to confess to such involvement" and so (33) "As a result of the foregoing pressure and their guilty consciences....[the family] signed confessions to involvement with the Caherciveen Baby which are not true"

Well we all knew they weren't true before the Tribunal. Which was why it was convened to find out how they were produced and signed. The Judge, while stating obviously enough that (4) "The Caherciveen Baby is not the child of Joanne Hayes" nonetheless stated, without credible evidence, that she had killed her own baby.

If his report was as damning to the Gardai as you claim, how come none of them were disciplined for the "pressure" they had exerted to produce patently false statements?

There is a difference between a criminal investigation and a tribunal of enquiry. The cocking up of the former necessitated the latter. Which was also cocked up, IMHO.

The declaration removed any lingering doubt that the Hayes family should ever have been "on the hook" as you put it. It in no way pardons whoever was responsible for the other baby's death. Are you suggesting the Hayes family should be "re hooked" for something? What grounds or evidence do you have for that?

See the points made above. If there is any "evidence" produced in the report for choking or beating a baby with a bath brush, apart from the utterly unreliable "statements to police" whose implausibility sparked the entire Tribunal in the first place, I appear to have missed them. Maybe you can point out wherever they may be?

I need to read the report?

Wow!!! You're still implying that their record is unclean??

:eek: :eek:

Shame on you!

Shame on me? Now anyone who challenges the new orthodoxy, or even asks questions, is to be silenced and shamed. Plus ca change!

And you wheel out strawman arguments:

That should have been the central issue for law enforcement, in the first instance the Gardai, but it was NOT the central issue for the enquiry,

I never suggested otherwise, nor did I suggest that the Tribunal was a criminal trial or misrepresent its terms of reference. But if you’re trying to belittle the Tribunal’s status in law, its findings were, with one exception, made on the basis of evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

But here’s your central problem

How did the judge work out for himself which bits were true and which were not, given that the central forensic fact was that Joanne Hayes' baby had NOT been stabbed, although the statements said it had?

For many people today, truth is relative and we can choose our own facts, but Judge Kevin Lynch was from a traditional school of jurisprudence where the role of the judge is to consider all the evidence and to sift the truth from the lies or the wishful thinking or the special pleading. Anyone who reads his report will be brought through the evidence in a logical, structured manner. He gives clear reasons why he discounts some evidence and he clarifies the importance of other evidence.

For example he deals with the “blatant perjury” of Mrs. Hayes who told the Tribunal at first that she knew nothing about her daughter’s (third) pregnancy and the birth/death of her grandson in 1984. Mrs. Hayes then came back to the Tribunal and told a completely different story because her lies had been exposed by other witnesses.

Indeed, the judge has to sift through the lies which each of the Hayes family told at various stages to conceal the birth/death. He carefully analyses their statements to Gardai and shows what was fact and what was fiction, whether just embellishments of the truth or misunderstandings or downright lies.

This is a commonplace exercise by judges in a country where perjury is a national sport. Just read some court reports of compo claims. The Tribunal, of course, dealt with much more serious matters - the murder of the Cahersiveen baby and the concealed death of Joanne Hayes’ son.

The most difficult part of the judge’s task was that the Gardai had inserted their own fictions to make the statements fit the Cahersiveen baby. Many commentators find this aspect bizarre but Judge Lynch explains the motives of the Gardai. They had a family in Kerry admitting to disposing of a dead baby and they desperately wanted to solve the crime that had shocked the nation. Between the lies of the Hayes family and their own incompetence, the Gardai twisted the death of the Hayes baby to fit the Cahersiveen case.

Notice how in all the palaver by the lawyers and the Court last week, there was no complaint about Garda brutality. But the Hayes family told the Tribunal that named Gardai had assaulted them and forced them to make false statements admitting to murdering a baby. Judge Lynch disposed of those false allegations against the Gardai but now we must forget the defamation of the Garda officers. But that leaves a big problem for the Hayes family. Why on earth did the Hayes family sign such incriminating statements if they were not coerced? That was the main task for Judge Lynch and he gives the only reasonable explanation. The problem for the media is that they had pushed for this Tribunal and they didn’t like this answer because it didn’t suit their narrative (Garda Heavy Gang down from Dublin).

None of this is pleasant and no one comes well out of the affair but it is a travesty to abandon the truth in favour of a self-deluding fantasy of “we’ll never know what happened the poor babies” and “loads of money” will make things right.

But I’ll stop here because no one here is interested in these facts. You won’t answer my questions although I have answered yours. Certainly no one in the media will look seriously at the Tribunal Report which has been unceremoniously dumped without a shred of justification.

Johnthemanager

Caquas wrote: »

Shame on me? Now anyone who challenges the new orthodoxy, or even asks questions, is to be silenced and shamed. Plus ca change!

And you wheel out strawman arguments:

I never suggested otherwise, nor did I suggest that the Tribunal was a criminal trial or misrepresent its terms of reference. But if you’re trying to belittle the Tribunal’s status in law, its findings were, with one exception, made on the basis of evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

But here’s your central problem

For many people today, truth is relative and we can choose our own facts, but Judge Kevin Lynch was from a traditional school of jurisprudence where the role of the judge is to consider all the evidence and to sift the truth from the lies or the wishful thinking or the special pleading. Anyone who reads his report will be brought through the evidence in a logical, structured manner. He gives clear reasons why he discounts some evidence and he clarifies the importance of other evidence.

For example he deals with the “blatant perjury” of Mrs. Hayes who told the Tribunal at first that she knew nothing about her daughter’s (third) pregnancy and the birth/death of her grandson in 1984. Mrs. Hayes then came back to the Tribunal and told a completely different story because her lies had been exposed by other witnesses.

Indeed, the judge has to sift through the lies which each of the Hayes family told at various stages to conceal the birth/death. He carefully analyses their statements to Gardai and shows what was fact and what was fiction, whether just embellishments of the truth or misunderstandings or downright lies.

This is a commonplace exercise by judges in a country where perjury is a national sport. Just read some court reports of compo claims. The Tribunal, of course, dealt with much more serious matters - the murder of the Cahersiveen baby and the concealed death of Joanne Hayes’ son.

The most difficult part of the judge’s task was that the Gardai had inserted their own fictions to make the statements fit the Cahersiveen baby. Many commentators find this aspect bizarre but Judge Lynch explains the motives of the Gardai. They had a family in Kerry admitting to disposing of a dead baby and they desperately wanted to solve the crime that had shocked the nation. Between the lies of the Hayes family and their own incompetence, the Gardai twisted the death of the Hayes baby to fit the Cahersiveen case.

Notice how in all the palaver by the lawyers and the Court last week, there was no complaint about Garda brutality. But the Hayes family told the Tribunal that named Gardai had assaulted them and forced them to make false statements admitting to murdering a baby. Judge Lynch disposed of those false allegations against the Gardai but now we must forget the defamation of the Garda officers. But that leaves a big problem for the Hayes family. Why on earth did the Hayes family sign such incriminating statements if they were not coerced? That was the main task for Judge Lynch and he gives the only reasonable explanation. The problem for the media is that they had pushed for this Tribunal and they didn’t like this answer because it didn’t suit their narrative (Garda Heavy Gang down from Dublin).

None of this is pleasant and no one comes well out of the affair but it is a travesty to abandon the truth in favour of a self-deluding fantasy of “we’ll never know what happened the poor babies” and “loads of money” will make things right.

But I’ll stop here because no one here is interested in these facts. You won’t answer my questions although I have answered yours. Certainly no one in the media will look seriously at the Tribunal Report which has been unceremoniously dumped without a shred of justification.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Caquas

Johnthemanager wrote: »

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

Perfect illustration of my first point: shaming and silence.

Plus ca change.

Snickers Man

Caquas wrote: »

Shame on me? Now anyone who challenges the new orthodoxy, or even asks questions, is to be silenced and shamed. Plus ca change!

If by "challenging the new orthodoxy" you mean smearing the Hayes family by suggesting that they had a "dirty" record which has now been "wiped clean without further ado" WHICH YOU DID--go back and read your post, then yes: that is shameful on your part.

Caquas wrote: »

And you wheel out strawman arguments:
.......
I never suggested ....that the Tribunal was a criminal trial or misrepresent its terms of reference.

Straw man argument my foot! What did you mean, then, when you said "The central issue is who stabbed a baby to death and dumped his body in the sea?"

I merely replied that that was indeed the "central issue" for the original criminal investigation, but given that that investigation went so catastrophically wrong, a tribunal was necessary to determine how the police cocked up so badly.

THAT was, or should have been, the central issue for the Tribunal. But the judge bottled it with his determination to shift at least part of the blame on to the Hayes family. He found as a matter of fact (conclusion no 28) that there had been no "assault on or physical abuse of any member of the Hayes family...by any Gardai".
Fair enough: the Hayes family say they did, the Gardai say they didn't. One person's word against another with no corroborative physical evidence.

However, note the use of the word "physical" He also added in the very next item that "The obvious belief of the Gardai in...[the Hayes family's guilt]..gave rise to pressure on the Hayes family...to confess"

That would seem to me to be the crux of the matter. What was the nature of that "pressure"? What interrogation techniques did the Gardai use that resulted in such clearly false confessions? Is that not a matter of concern for everyone?
Call me old fashioned or even breathtakingly naive but I think it is the duty of Police anywhere to find the people who are guilty of crimes that have taken place and bring them to justice, not find as guilty the nearest plausible suspect and "pressurise" (the judge's word) them into false confessions.
Just because it didn't leave marks, doesn't mean whatever "pressure" was applied was justifiable. Especially when it produced such a wrong result.

Caquas wrote: »

.Judge Kevin Lynch was from a traditional school of jurisprudence where the role of the judge is to consider all the evidence and to sift the truth from the lies or the wishful thinking or the special pleading. Anyone who reads his report will be brought through the evidence in a logical, structured manner. He gives clear reasons why he discounts some evidence and he clarifies the importance of other evidence.

Oh please!

It's too close to Christmas to disect the entire report but a perfunctory glance reminded me of two of the most bizarre passages written by the judge. They both come in the report in the section headed Public Attitudes.

One passage refers to a woman who had "been far more gravely wronged" than Joanne Hayes, in the judge's view.

That was the wife of Joanne Hayes' lover, Jeremiah Locke. Commenting on the generous support proffered to the Hayes family, especially from local people, he asked:
"What public sympathy and support was shown to Mrs Locke for all these wrongs committed against her? None whatsoever.
What was the public attitude shown to the wrongdoer? [ie Joanne Hayes] She was heaped with bouquets of flowers, greeting cards of support and even Mass cards! ....
Why no bouquets of flowers for Mrs Locke?
Why no cards, no Mass cards, for Mrs Locke?
Why no public assemblies to support her in her embarrassment and agony?"

Whereas his undoubted concerns for Mrs Locke's hurt feelings are to his credit, and they were probably shared by many people, one has to ask: what on earth has any of this to do with the terms of reference of the Tribunal, which were to find out how the police investigation of a stabbed baby went so badly wrong?

The judge is entitled to his opinion, however archaic, of "wrongdoers" who lure married men into adultery (again, his expressed views elsewhere in the report) but do they belong in the findings of a report which was conducted, not into the murky love life of Mr Locke or the Jezebel who tempted him to stray from the marriage bed, but into the gross miscarriage of justice that might have happened but for a fortuitous difference in babies' blood groups?

The other disquieting passage was when he referred to the protestors outside the courthouse who had become outraged by the treatment of the family during the proceedings. On January 28th 1985 the Tribunal (ie Judge Lynch) issued a statement concerning the protests. It is reproduced in the report in the section entitled Public Attitudes. Here's a passage from that statement in abridged form

"I am laying down here and now what I shall not tolerate.
There shall be no pickets, even a silent and peaceful picket, in the vicinity of where the Tribunal is sitting. ...
There shall be no insults to any of the legal representatives of any of the parties involved in this Inquiry.....
And there shall be no insults to the Tribunal itself.
If any person shall breach any of the foregoing prohibitions..they SHALL be committed to prison by me i]my emphasis-SM[/i
..the only person who can release that person..is myself.
It must be clearly understood that I am not going to put myself out to facilitate, or hasten, or hurry to hear any [application by a jailed person to purge their contempt in order to gain release from prison]
I rather think I would find it inconvenient to hear [such an application] so long as I continue to sit here in Tralee, whether that will be for a period of three, four, five or six weeks."

Or to summarise: if anyone protests against the conduct of the Tribunal, however peacefully and quietly, I will bang them up until such time as I can be bothered to consider their abject apology!

Yeah. Gotta love that Judge's interpretation from his "traditional school of jurisprudence" of what should be permissible in a free society :rolleyes:

Caquas wrote: »

the judge has to sift through the lies which each of the Hayes family told at various stages to conceal the birth/death. He carefully analyses their statements to Gardai and shows what was fact and what was fiction, whether just embellishments of the truth or misunderstandings or downright lies.

No he bloody well does not! He cherry picks as facts utterings from the very same statements in which the Hayes family described a baby being stabbed. Surely, given that such a central point as that was proved to be bogus, and accepted as such by the judge, then the entire statements had to be treated with suspicion?

Caquas wrote: »

Notice how in all the palaver by the lawyers and the Court last week, there was no complaint about Garda brutality. But the Hayes family told the Tribunal that named Gardai had assaulted them ...
Judge Lynch disposed of those false allegations against the Gardai but now we must forget the defamation of the Garda officers. But that leaves a big problem for the Hayes family. Why on earth did the Hayes family sign such incriminating statements if they were not coerced? That was the main task for Judge Lynch and he gives the only reasonable explanation.

I don't believe he did. See my previous point above regarding the subtle difference between "physical abuse" and "pressure" that leads to a patently wrong conclusion.

Graces7

Deleted User wrote: »

Could it be argued they were really old fashioned??....as burying unborn babies in killens went on till the 70s near my fathers homeplace (idk when church restrictions ended on burying unbaptised babies?)

Still see odd bunchs of flowers appear there,sad to think in a few years,noone will remember these

Not sure re the dates but many of the killeens, which were for unbaptised babies, hence stillbirths, were " rehabilitated" and consecrated. I saw this many times when I was new in Ireland. Which was 2000. ( as a church/monastic historian I looked into many of these places. There was one such in Mayo, near Glenamoy where my landlady's parents were buried, a lovely monument. Also they told me that there was another in an open field, and the farmer refused to let them in.

There was a wonderful event in Achill where babies buried outside the villages etc were gathered in and the graves marked. ( cannot post links)

Can you ask the priest about this in your area? A simple marker? A fine thing to do.

And yes all possibilies of reasons for the way they hid the dead baby. The investigalion and shame. And none of that would give the baby life. That will have happened many times in those days.

[Deleted User]

Graces7 wrote: »

Not sure re the dates but many of the killeens, which were for unbaptised babies, hence stillbirths, were " rehabilitated" and consecrated. I saw this many times when I was new in Ireland. Which was 2000. ( as a church/monastic historian I looked into many of these places. There was one such in Mayo, near Glenamoy where my landlady's parents were buried, a lovely monument. Also they told me that there was another in an open field, and the farmer refused to let them in.

Drive past a Kileens (Cork) every day. Did not know that was the meaning.

Caquas

Snickers Man wrote: »

If by "challenging the new orthodoxy" you mean smearing the Hayes family by suggesting that they had a "dirty" record which has now been "wiped clean without further ado" WHICH YOU DID--go back and read your post, then yes: that is shameful on your part.
....
.

You do not respond to any of the questions I put to you and you repeat your groundless claims in a farrago of misrepresentations, smokescreens and diversions.

I will respond seriatim to your nonsense but, on the Eve of Feast of the Nativity, I prefer to contemplate the story of a miraculous birth and the infant who escaped the murderous Herod only to fall prey to the Sanhedrin thirty three years later when Pontius Pilate washed his hands of a prophet who challenged their orthodoxy.

Now, thirty six years later, the Irish State has washed its hands of the Kerry Babies.

Snickers Man

Caquas wrote: »

You do not respond to any of the questions I put to you and you repeat your groundless claims in a farrago of misrepresentations, smokescreens and diversions.

What questions have you asked?
You "diverted", to use your own word, to a completely different and utterly unrelated case to put a question about Alan Shatter's experiences. I decline to answer that one because it's got absolutely nothing to do with this case. I don't much care for "whataboutery", of which that question was a classic example.

You also claimed that "the central issue is who stabbed a baby to death and dumped his body in the sea?" (I note the use of a question mark) and then when it was pointed out to you that that was NOT actually the central issue for the tribunal you back tracked and said that you never claimed that it was.

You even repeated, and broadened, the question by saying "This week’s bogus Court declaration dismissing the Tribunal left unanswered the central issue in this case: what happened the two babies?"
Let me repeat: The Tribunal's main task was not to determine "what happened the two babies"; it was to determine why several members of the Hayes family confessed to a conspiracy to stab to death a new born baby they were proven to have had nothing to do with and dispose of its body in the sea.
The Judge did NOT answer that question adequately.

He hinted, rather than declared, that the Gardai had "pressurised" the family into making false confessions while declining to assert that they had carried out physical assaults. That raises more questions than it answers.

He was determined to put much of the blame for the false confessions on the Hayes family themselves, calling Joanne Hayes a "wrongdoer" and engaging in the sort of Whataboutery you seem to value by bringing Mr Locke's cuckolded wife into his analysis and judgement.

The impression one is left with, from the overall tone as well as the content of the judge's report is that his ruling was effectively: "Yeah, they didn't stab the baby, that wasn't of their family anyway, but they had it coming to them because well, yer wan's a bit of a slapper"

Fair play to him for declaring that she was neither the mother nor the killer of the Caherciveen baby but that was known beyond reasonable doubt at the time anyway. (Since reinforced beyond any doubt by subsequent DNA analysis).
I don't see what your objection to the state apologising to the Hayes family for their ordeal, which was only necessary because of the bone-headed refusal of the Gardai immediately to apologise and make amends for a cock up on their part. Or to the payment of damages for the distress caused by the combined ordeal of being interrogated, "pressurised", charged, jailed on remand and subsequently eviscerated during a Tribunal.

The entire Tribunal would have been unnecessary had the Gardai done their job properly in the first case, or apologised and made amends immediately once it was proven that they'd made a mistake.

Caquas wrote: »

I will respond seriatim to your nonsense

My breath is bated!

Caquas wrote: »

on the Eve of Feast of the Nativity, I prefer to contemplate the story of a miraculous birth and the infant who escaped the murderous Herod only to fall prey to the Sanhedrin thirty three years later when Pontius Pilate washed his hands of a prophet who challenged their orthodoxy.

Well if you believe that ****e, you'll probably believe in the Heteropaternal Superfecundation, or even the Azores Baby theories.

Caquas

There is no limit to the shaming tactic in this case:

Snickers Man wrote: »

If by "challenging the new orthodoxy" you mean smearing the Hayes family by suggesting that they had a "dirty" record which has now been "wiped clean without further ado" WHICH YOU DID--go back and read your post, then yes: that is shameful on your part.
....

I hope we still live in a society where speaking the truth is no smear. I said the Hayes family concealed the birth and death of Joanne's second baby, they lied repeatedly to the Gardai and to the Tribunal. Incontrovertible facts. I also recalled the findings of the Tribunal in regard to the cause of her baby's death.

Of course,the whole point of the recent Court declaration was to deny the Tribunal's finding on that issue but I have nothing but contempt for that Court's groundless gesture. The most disgraceful aspect of the latest judicial move is that no one involved - not the Court, not the Gardai, not the Minister for Justice - had the slightest interest in the truth about the Hayes baby's death.

Straw man argument my foot! What did you mean, then, when you said "The central issue is who stabbed a baby to death and dumped his body in the sea?"

I merely replied that that was indeed the "central issue" for the original criminal investigation, but given that that investigation went so catastrophically wrong, a tribunal was necessary to determine how the police cocked up so badly.

You made a great show - in ALL-CAPS - of denying somthing I never claimed - the very definition of a Strawman argument - and you still don't see the problem

You also claimed that "the central issue is who stabbed a baby to death and dumped his body in the sea?" (I note the use of a question mark) and then when it was pointed out to you that that was NOT actually the central issue for the tribunal you back tracked and said that you never claimed that it was

.

It is very revealing that you misunderstand my statement as referring to issue for the Tribunal. For you, the investigation and the Tribunal are the central issues. For me, it is the deaths of two babies. But you did put your finger on a fundamental question-

That would seem to me to be the crux of the matter. What was the nature of that "pressure"? What interrogation techniques did the Gardai use that resulted in such clearly false confessions? Is that not a matter of concern for everyone?

False confessions are often extracted by brutal interrogation methods in many countries and the Garda "Heavy Gang" engaged in those tactics during the 1970s, a terrible stain on the record of the entire force. And many people assumed something similar had been done to the Hayes family but the Tribunal demolished these claims convincingly and you will notice that no serious commentator persisted in such claims later.

The Garda "Murder Squad" from Dublin - coincidentally led by a Kerryman - and the Tralee Gardai had good reason to believe that Joanne Hayes' baby was the Cahersiveen baby. They had scoured the county and discovered only one "missing baby" (an earlier suspect having been clearded) and the Hayes family were lying to them. Chapters 17 - 30 of the Tribunal report deals in detail with the allegations of the Hayes family against the Gardai and the Statements that they made to the Gardai. What emerges from the Tribunal's analysis is a convincing explanation for your question - in short, the Hayes family were guilt-ridden by what had happened Joanne's baby which was born alive and they were confused as to what had ultimately happened the corpse. No doubt, the Gardai pressed them hard but no more than we would expect in a murder investigation when the suspects' lies have been exposed.

Chapter 34 of the Tribunal report (Frame or Cover-up) is also telling:

In the end of the day, however, in closing submissions the Hayes family abandoned any suggestion that there was a conspiracy to frame them and instead shifted their ground to an alleged conspiracy to cover up a poor and botched investigation which had led to charges being preferred against the wrong people in relation to the Cahirciveen Baby (81/P4 to P6).

Of course, a general view has formed that the Hayes family are blameless and that the Tribual was biased (hence the millions in compensation)

You repeat another familar canard:

If his report was as damning to the Gardai as you claim, how come none of them were disciplined for the "pressure" they had exerted to produce patently false statements?

Every one of the Gardai in this case was reassigned shortly after the Tribunal Report and their careers were seriously damaged. Commissioner Wren naturally denied that these moves were "disciplinary" because he would have to engage in the disciplinary machinary but no one was in any doubt but that these Gardai were being punished. (Of course, some in the media claim otherwise because it suits their agenda)

"I am laying down here and now what I shall not tolerate.
There shall be no pickets, even a silent and peaceful picket, in the vicinity of where the Tribunal is sitting. ...
There shall be no insults to any of the legal representatives of any of the parties involved in this Inquiry.....
...
I rather think I would find it inconvenient to hear [such an application] so long as I continue to sit here in Tralee, whether that will be for a period of three, four, five or six weeks."

Or to summarise: if anyone protests against the conduct of the Tribunal, however peacefully and quietly, I will bang them up until such time as I can be bothered to consider their abject apology!

No, to summarise the facts:

When the Tribunal was hearing evidence in the Urban Council Chamber in Tralee on Wednesday, the 23rd January and again, on Thursday, the 24th
January, 1985, pickets assembled on the roadway outside the Urban Council premises. These pickets and more especially the disorderly picket of Thursday
afternoon, the 24th January, 1985, seriously threatened the continuance of the Tribunal hearings in Tralee and the freedom of the parties to make their
respective cases to the Tribunal without let or hindrance by any outside party. In addition, there was a bomb threat shortly after mid-day on Wednesday,
the 23rd January, 1985, which the Tribunal ignored.

In these circumstances, the Tribunal gave everyone fair warning that under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) Act, 1979 it had the powers , rights and privileges vested in the High Court. Try organising a daily picket at the Four Courts and see how long you last. And if the Judge didn't take action, one side or another would protest.

He was determined to put much of the blame for the false confessions on the Hayes family themselves, calling Joanne Hayes a "wrongdoer" and engaging in the sort of Whataboutery you seem to value by bringing Mr Locke's cuckolded wife into his analysis and judgement.

You think that Mrs. Mary Locke is "whataboutery"? Not if you were interested in understanding why Joanne Hayes, having a daughter with Jeremiah Locke, concealed her pregancy and the birth/death of her son. Of course, the Tribunal (and everyone in Tralee) understood the stigma was not that Joanne was unmarried, it was that the father was married. But that wrecks the media narrative so it's "whataboutery".

The Feast of the Holy Innocents is a good day to recall the two Kerry babies and the multiple failures of the State and the media over 36 yeas, culminating in the recent travesty of justice in which the High Court declared all findings of wrongdoing by the Kerry Babies Tribunal to be "unfounded and incorrect and was in breach of constitutional rights". The work of the Tribunal was binned unceremoniously without hearing a jot of evidence. An ugly judicial precedent, with the connivance of our politicians and the media.

No one will be thanked for exposing this sanctimonious fraud, in fact they will be shamed and silenced. Not a single journalist has mentioned any of these facts in the past month when every major news outlet carried commentary pieces.

Caquas

Snickers Man wrote: »

What questions have you asked?
You "diverted", to use your own word, to a completely different and utterly unrelated case to put a question about Alan Shatter's experiences. I decline to answer that one because it's got absolutely nothing to do with this case. I don't much care for "whataboutery", of which that question was a classic example.

A separate but fundamental point- you clearly are not a lawyer because you have no appreciation for precedent. Like many Irish people today, you shout “whataboutery” whenever an analogous but inconvenient case is mentioned. I assure you that Alan Shatter is studying carefully the “declaration” issued by Ms. Justice Reynolds and its implications for his successful challenge to the Guerin Inquiry. And the legal advisers to Angela Kerins will use the Hayes case as a benchmark for her damages claim. A perfect precedent for a woman subjected to an illegal inquisition. Adding handsomely to her millions from the taxpayers.

Notice that no representative of the legal profession has commented on the Hayes case. Surely the Bar Council and the Law Society should have something to say when the taxpayers are on the hook for the behaviour of their members at the Tribunal? But they’ll say nothing because they want nothing to do with this B.S.settlement and the media won’t ask because they’d be sent away with a flea in their ear.

Caquas

Snickers Man wrote: »

Originally Posted by Caquas
on the Eve of Feast of the Nativity, I prefer to contemplate the story of a miraculous birth and the infant who escaped the murderous Herod only to fall prey to the Sanhedrin thirty three years later when Pontius Pilate washed his hands of a prophet who challenged their orthodoxy.

Well if you believe that ****e, you'll probably believe in the Heteropaternal Superfecundation, or even the Azores Baby theories.

You ŵere the one who brought up Christmas but your seething contempt for essential Christian beliefs makes it impossible for you to understand the motivations of the people involved in the Kerry Babies case. (Some of the journalists back then would have shared your attitudes).

VillageIdiot71

Caquas wrote: »

In these circumstances, the Tribunal gave everyone fair warning that under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) Act, 1979 it had the powers , rights and privileges vested in the High Court. Try organising a daily picket at the Four Courts and see how long you last. And if the Judge didn't take action, one side or another would protest.

I admire your persistence in setting out the inconvenient facts of the matter.

On that particular point, I think the Tribunal's report is interesting

I think in fairness to the people of Abbeydorney, however, that I should contrast the silent and dignified assembly on behalf of the rural community of Abbeydorney of Wednesday, with the raucus and ill-mannered assembly on Thursday, gathered from the four corners of urban Ireland.

I do not think that the Hayes family instigated either of these assemblies, or approved of Thursday's assembly and its misconduct.

The report is fair and balanced, and worth reading if people really want to be informed.

Caquas

VillageIdiot71 wrote: »

I admire your persistence in setting out the inconvenient facts of the matter.

On that particular point, I think the Tribunal's report is interestingThe report is fair and balanced, and worth reading if people really want to be informed.

Most posters here seem to think I'm some kind of primeval mysogynist for defending the Tribunal Report but my viewpoint is similar to that of the Irish Times.

In their Editorial of 4 October 1985 ("Questions not answered") responding to the publication of the Report, the IT accepted the principal findings of the report i.e. that the Hayes family had nothing to do with the Cahirciveen baby but Joanne Hayes had lied about the birth of her baby and that the Garda investigation was "deplorably inadequate" but not brutal.

The Editorial does challenge the Tribunal Report on an important legal question - were the Hayes family under arrest while being questioned in Tralee Garda Station? The Report said they were not "in a strictly legal sense" but that is hard to square with the fact that (inexplicably and disastrously) Joanne Hayes was not allowed to go to the farm to show the Gardai where the baby was buried. The Editorial also questions how specific details of the Cahirciveen murder found their way into the Hayes's confessions. On both these points, the IT says the Tribunal seems to have taken a narrow view of its terms of reference and these issues should be handled by the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice.

Strange how the recent IT coverage never refers to its own fair and balanced, contemporaneous assessment of the Tribunal Report, prefering instead to re-write even its own history so as to portray the Tribunal as a travesty of justice from Ireland of 1935, not 1985. And the valid questions are cast aside because there is magic money to be had.

Snickers Man

Caquas wrote: »

A separate but fundamental point- you clearly are not a lawyer because you have no appreciation for precedent.

Clearly. And thanks for noticing.
I suspect you are. And given your claimed intimate knowledge, not only of Justice Lynch's actions but also his private motivations (how else would you know that he "Very reluctantly....answered the Magill article in detail because he was the subject of a campaign of media vilification"?) I also suspect you might have been close to him, but let's not rush any presumptions to the point of coming to erroneous conclusions, eh? That, in a very real sense, was what caused the mess that the Tribunal was set up to sort out!

Caquas wrote: »

Like many Irish people today, you shout “whataboutery” whenever an analogous but inconvenient case is mentioned. I assure you that Alan Shatter is studying carefully the “declaration” issued by Ms. Justice Reynolds and its implications for his successful challenge to the Guerin Inquiry.

We are not arguing a legal case here; we are not (or at least some of us are not) lawyers. We are talking about the ongoing legacy of a controversy that should never have been allowed proceed along the course that it did. I am talking as a lay person, but the issues drawn up by the tribunal are of interest and concern to all of us, not just the "priesthood" of the legal profession, or the police.

As I said at the outset, in one of my first if not my very first, posts "the core of the scandal..[is]..that the police, having made a serious mistake, were unable or unwilling to redress it and instead insisted they had done no wrong."

That remains my main point of view regarding this entire case. Of course the Gardai were right to question the Hayes family in the course of their investigations into the murder of the Caherciveen baby. There were coincidences that were too obvious to ignore. But it is obvious to anybody that they rushed to conclusions and erroneously extracted false confessions from the Hayes family. And instead of holding their hands up and saying "Ah come on lads! What would ye have thought yourselves?" they instead persisted with the palaver of trying to fit the known facts, forensic and otherwise, to fit the false confessions.
Even Judge Lynch said that the police were guilty of "the elevation of honest beliefs" or even "wishful thinking" .... "into hard facts".
That being said, the Judge seemed very keen to spread the blame for the tragedy at least in part to the Hayes family. He seemed to conclude that just because there was no proof of physical assault, apart from the testimony of the Hayes family, that the police had done no wrong in "pressurising" the family into making false statements.
In other words, he left one of the main issues he was supposed to investigate unresolved.

Caquas

Snickers Man wrote: »

Clearly. And thanks for noticing.
I suspect you are. And given your claimed intimate knowledge, not only of Justice Lynch's actions but also his private motivations (how else would you know that he "Very reluctantly....answered the Magill article in detail because he was the subject of a campaign of media vilification"?) I also suspect you might have been close to him, but let's not rush any presumptions to the point of coming to erroneous conclusions, eh? That, in a very real sense, was what caused the mess that the Tribunal was set up to sort out!

I never had any contact with Mr. Justice Lynch and I don't think I'm related to any party involved with the Tribunal. I am simply quoting Judge Lynch who responded to the Magill article "most reluctantly" because, then as now, the media was biased against his report. Like virtually everyone in this country, I had practically forgotten this case until that DNA investigation in 2018 (an inexplicable exercise after more than 30 years).

We are not arguing a legal case here; we are not (or at least some of us are not) lawyers. We are talking about the ongoing legacy of a controversy that should never have been allowed proceed along the course that it did. I am talking as a lay person, but the issues drawn up by the tribunal are of interest and concern to all of us, not just the "priesthood" of the legal profession, or the police.

Unfortunately we are arguing about a legal case. I only joined this thread (post #356, reviving the thread after more than two years) when the civil suit brought by the Hayes family against the State resulted in a settlement of 2.5 Million Euro in their favour and a declaration by the High Court that all the Tribunal's findings of wrongdoing made against them were "unfounded and incorrect".

I am shocked by this outcome which is not based on an iota of new evidence - the 2018 DNA investigation merely confirmed the Tribunal finding that the Cahirciveen baby was not the child of Joanne Hayes. The media coverage of the settlement has been deplorable - no questions were asked of the Minister and no journalist has mentioned the concealment of the Hayes baby's birth/death or the lies the Hayes family told the Gardai investigating the brutal murder of the Cahirciveeen baby.

As I said at the outset, in one of my first if not my very first, posts "the core of the scandal..[is]..that the police, having made a serious mistake, were unable or unwilling to redress it and instead insisted they had done no wrong."

That remains my main point of view regarding this entire case. Of course the Gardai were right to question the Hayes family in the course of their investigations into the murder of the Caherciveen baby. There were coincidences that were too obvious to ignore. But it is obvious to anybody that they rushed to conclusions and erroneously extracted false confessions from the Hayes family. And instead of holding their hands up and saying "Ah come on lads! What would ye have thought yourselves?" they instead persisted with the palaver of trying to fit the known facts, forensic and otherwise, to fit the false confessions.
Even Judge Lynch said that the police were guilty of "the elevation of honest beliefs" or even "wishful thinking" .... "into hard facts".

The primary task for the Tribunal was to inquire into how criminal charges came to be laid against the Hayes family. The Tribunal Report gives a very detailed answer but the key points are that:

As a result of the patently false stories first told to the Gardai by each member of the Hayes family and Bridie Fuller, the Gardai's strong suspicions
of the involvement of the Hayes family and Bridie Fuller with the Cahirciveen Baby progressed into a positive and certain belief.

but then

The Garda searches for the Tralee Baby on the 1st May, 1984 were
deplorably inadequate and the failure to find the Tralee Baby on that date is
inexcusable. This failure to find the Tralee Baby put further pressure on
Joanne Hayes to confess that her baby was not on the lands and therefore
must be the Cahirciveen Baby

and when the Tralee Baby was found on the Hayes farm and the blood group of the Cahirciveen Baby was established

In support of the theory that Joanne Hayes had had twins, the Gardai resorted to unlikely, far-fetched and self-contradictory theories:...

and

The Gardai gave a lot of thought to the foregoing theories mentioned
in Paragraph 39, but gave little or no thought to a re-appraisal of the whole
case with a view to determining what had happened in the Hayes household
on the night of Thursday/Friday the 12th/13th April, 1984, if Joanne Hayes
was not the mother of the Cahirciveen Baby.

Originally Posted by Snickers Man
That being said, the Judge seemed very keen to spread the blame for the tragedy at least in part to the Hayes family. He seemed to conclude that just because there was no proof of physical assault, apart from the testimony of the Hayes family, that the police had done no wrong in "pressurising" the family into making false statements.
In other words, he left one of the main issues he was supposed to investigate unresolved.

The Tribunal Report devotes separate chapters to the allegations of each of the four members of the Hayes family who claimed to have been assaulted by the Gardai. It concludes that all these allegations, which were only made in October 1984 after the Sindo published long extracts from their Statements, were false. As I said before, the Hayes family have long abandoned those claims despite the deliberate efforts by the media and social media to sustain these allegations. The Tribunal acknowledges that there was intense psychological pressure on all members of the Hayes family and especially on Joanne Hayes. The Gardai did make the confessions fit the facts of the Cahirciveen case, another serious failure in the investigation. But the Tribunal was not established to determine the limits of police questioning of suspects. It found that the allegations of assault were false and that the Gardai had mishandled the investigation. I agree with the Irish Times editorial that the broader question of police questioning is a matter for the Commissioner and the Minister, not for a Tribunal into a specific case.

The High Court declaration, concocted by lawyers for the State and the Hayes family to suit their own purposes and rubber-stamped by Ms. Justice Reynolds, deliberately falsifies the story of the Kerry babies case, presenting the Hayes family as innocent victims of brutal Gardai and a misogynistic judge. (Has anyone seen the full text of this Declaration? I am relying on media extracts)

We have come to expect our politicians to pander to popular fantasies but this settlement demeans our Courts at a time when confidence in the judiciary is being tested by the unresolved issue of Seamus Woulfe's appointment. If the administration of justice is perverted by a policy of re-writing our history, we will eventually pay a terrible price.

Caquas

The latest Phoenix has a piece on the Kerry Babies case that wastes time on Gerry O'Carroll and his nonsense twins theory.

https://www.thephoenix.ie/article/kerry-babies-coldest-case/

But it does remind us that those handing over millions to the Hayes family have forgotten the murdered baby in Caherciveen.

I know the Gardai did a big trawl of Caherciveen a few years back with lots of media coverage. Caherciveen is probably the last place in Kerry where that baby was murdered, unless the killer wanted to be discovered. Would the killer put the body into the sea in front of their own home? That seemed to be the theory the Gardai were working on a few years ago. Who knows what theory they have now. None probably, just hoping the money will shut everyone up. Seems to be working so far.

If the authorities were actually interested in justice, they could use the DNA from genealogy sites to establish where the baby's relatives are concentrated, as was done to track down the Golden State killer. But that won't happen - data protection or some such rule will take precedence over solving this brutal murder of a baby.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2020/06/30/genetic-genealogy-golden-state-killer/

Fake Scores

Caquas wrote: »

The latest Phoenix has a piece on the Kerry Babies case that wastes time on Gerry O'Carroll and

Funny Gerry is the only guard who is ever mentioned around this case.
Although that's pretty much down to himself.
They all enjoyed multiple promotions afterwards. Including pat Byrne who became commissioner. A bunch of them got big settlements from newspapers who had allegedly defamed them regarding this case, such as PJ brown.

As for the perpetrator if they're still alive. Even if you identified them at this stage you certainly would never have evidence to take a court case.

James Brown

Its a sad case study that gives some insight to the role the authorities played in the mother and baby homes.
This family was stitched up. I'd liken it to the Salem witch trials where these people were picked for no good reason to be used so moral justice could be seen to be served
Ireland has a long way to go and addressing the past needs to be the start.

Hotblack Desiato

KaneToad wrote: »

Is it considered nasty to point out the behaviour of the Hayes family in the illegal concealment of the birth and subsequent death of her baby.

Nuns did that hundreds if not thousands of times over - not in relation to stillbirths, but live births which were legally required to have a recorded burial - and will face no investigation or penalty.

"But that's different..." :rolleyes:

Did anyone ever face criminal sanction for this? If not, why not?

Because unlike Tuam and many other places, there was precisely zero evidence that the Hayes committed a crime.

KaneToad wrote: »

I suppose that could be their thinking. However the manner in which they disposed of the body can't have been perceived as within the law - even by the most lay of laymen.

A stillbirth was not regarded as a birth, was not required to be registered (there was no register to record it on until 1995 in fact) and it was impossible to prove that the baby was not stillborn.

Caquas wrote: »

As I said repeatedly, the whole business is a mess from beginning to end but the Tribunal got it right.

The way the tribunal interrogated, or more accurately tortured, Joanne Hayes was disgusting.

Some people will defend literally anything.

Caquas

Quote: Originally Posted by Caquas
As I said repeatedly, the whole business is a mess from beginning to end but the Tribunal got it right.

The way the tribunal interrogated, or more accurately tortured, Joanne Hayes was disgusting.

Some people will defend literally anything.[/QUOTE]

How do you get "defend literally anything" from "the whole business is a mess from beginning to end".

But the Tribunal Report gave the only reasonable explanation for the Hayes family confessions.

Hotblack Desiato

Caquas wrote: »

But the Tribunal Report gave the only reasonable explanation for the Hayes family confessions.

Interested in buying a bridge?

Caquas

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Interested in buying a bridge?

Got a better explanation?

Caquas

The Gardai have exhumed the remains of Baby John to get better DNA samples. They have also taken dozens of DNA samples locally.

Glad to see the Gardai are continuing an active investigation of this terrible murder.

http://rte.ie/r.html?rii=9_22005245_48_15-09-2021

Lollipops23

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117893306#Comment_117893306

A friend's mother, from the area and a similar age to Hayes, told me that a German lady living locally killed herself in the weeks after the discovery of Baby John's body. According to her it's generally accepted that she was his mother and suffered severe mental health issues.

Lillyfae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117894013#Comment_117894013

Shouldn't you be telling the Gardaí this?

john9876

I'm from the area and never heard this.