Here's an article from the Phoenix - I think there should be an enquiry into the garda handling and Gerry O'Carroll should be the first to be interrogated in relation to the gestapo style tactics and threats he very obviously used on the Hayes family. Then once its out in the open that he used illegal and underhand tactics, he should be charged with perverting justice and stripped of his garda record and garda pension.
WITH EACH staging post along the 40-year-old Kerry Babies saga, the prevailing view is that several gardaí were involved in a travesty in which six members of Joanne Hayes’s family in Abbeydorney confessed to crimes in 1984 they could not possibly have committed. One such garda is retired Det Inspector Gerry O’Carroll, one of two gardaí that interviewed Joanne and who now presents as also a victim. The retired detective has always denied any allegations of garda wrong-doing during the original probe.
In the aftermath of further DNA proof that baby John in Cahirciveen was not the child of Hayes, O’Carroll demanded “a full public inquiry” into the affair, saying with an injured air: “I want that to be put to bed forever more before I pass on to the next world. I will not have that hanging over my name and my reputation.”
Does Gerry really want a thorough inquiry into the scandal? Does he want gardaí to be interrogated by lawyers about how Joanne, her three siblings, mother and aunt delivered perfectly synchronised, detailed confessions to the beating to death of a baby and her three siblings travelling to Slea Head and throwing the body into the sea?
Subsequent events show this to be an impossible scenario, along with the fantastic superfecundation theory of Joanne bearing twins with two fathers.
Such scrutiny of the manner in which these confessions came about would likely produce a loud public demand for accountability, something so far lacking in this horror story, and O’Carroll would then certainly experience a feeling of victimhood.
In 2018, gardaí said that modern DNA evidence proved Joanne was not the mother of baby John in Cahirciveen but O’Carroll still demanded further DNA evidence. In January 2021 the former detective told Goldhawk that he wanted DNA testing carried out by Scotland Yard or the FBI. Last month he said that he now accepts the DNA results (although no crack police force from outside was involved in the DNA testing).
However, when asked by the Irish Independent’s Patrick O’Connell if he was sorry for Joanne after being wrongly charged with murder, O’Carroll said: “I have only sympathy for… the babies.” Irish Times columnist Diarmaid Ferriter has also suggested that O’Carroll should apologise to Joanne. Goldhawk concurs with this proposal – and also supports O’Carroll’s demand for a public inquiry.
"“If I’m wrong, I will eat a big slice of humble pie,” former Detective Gerry O’Carroll declared as his loud Kerry brogue echoed across the forecourt of a petrol station in Listowel."
He should be brought back to the crossroads in Abbeydorney and force fed what's left of his dyed comb-over;
I see up to as recently as the Gardai apology in 2018 that he was saying he still believed that Joanne Hayes had twins and was the mother of baby John. I also saw a media clip over the past couple of days where he said he had sympathy for the babies involved but not for Joanne Hayes and previously he said when he was interrogating her back in 1984 he treated her like he would his own daughter (God help his daughter!).
He really comes across as the worst type of self promoting spouting retired Gardai. As I recall he was also featured in the documentary on the Sallins train robber frame up too and was equally unapologetic about his role in that fiasco. I also saw he managed to fall out with his own cousins over a book he wrote a while back.
And he reakons he deserves an apology for how his reputation has been damaged.....
O Carroll is a complete cnut, an old barman friend used to see him drinking in his local Rathfarnham village pub chatting to a certain prominent crime correspondent
Nothing.
But she was presenting damning (and mostly, if not entirely, true) evidence against the Gardai so their counsel were trying to discredit her. Then, the mores were considered to be that conducting an affair with a married person made someone untrustworthy, unreliable and probably prone to being murderous. That backfired on the Gardai and the justice establishment, at least in the court of public opinion.
Today, you might use personal allegations of a different kind. Might they be racist? Transphobic? Xenophobic? Those are the things that push people's buttons nowadays.
I am not trying to maintain that the Hayes family deserved any of this or had in any way brought it upon themselves. It was the Gardai's perfunctory and presumptuous handling of the original murder case that led them to take shortcuts they thought they could get away with that is the real scandal here. Most of the Gardai involved in the case are dead. but Mr O'Carroll is still with us. And he IS deserving of the opprobrium he is getting from all sides.
absolutely agree. If anything there was far more optimism around in the 80's (despite the **** economy). Ok leaving college you headed abroad (as everyone else had to) but there were jobs! (just not in Ireland)..😀
The Catholic Church may have held sway over many but certainly not all people. Yes there was corruption, LOTS of corruption from the top of the pyramid to the bottom of it in. There still is today, despite what everyone wants you to think.
I loved growing up in the 70s and 80s. It certainly wasn't a dark foreboding era. People had less but in fairness it was more "free".
Yes sex was happening (hell it wasnt invented in the 2000s), I had gay friends, straight friends, single mother friends and there was always a way to get condoms... Moral attitudes were definitely changing in that period. Young people weren't afraid of the Church. OK small towns always had their gossips (still do today) and the old crowd still looked on single mothers as "fallen women" but by no means ALL of the older generation thought this.
Same for the 60s and 70s. And when discussing this recently with a group of people my age they all said the same. By and large we had great memories or our childhood. Warts and all.
He accepts but will not apologise
And it is because of the likes of this utter moran and his aggressive tactics and his superiority complex that most likely caused the real parents into keeping quiet.
I grew up in the eighties as well, it definitely wasn’t the dark misty state of fear that people make it out to be, sure you had to toe the line, there was a lot of change happening, I can’t speak for everyone but we had a great childhood, as far as I can see there’s a lot more hate and confusion in today’s world than there ever was. I don’t want to over romanticise it, times were tough but a lot of people had happy times as well.
He should grovel
@Madd Finn , you are correct I’ve edited my post now.
Here is some more ignorant BS;
If you can find a report anywhere that says the tribunal was not a witch-hunt maybe post a link.
Lived in the 1980s. Nothing unusual in Joanne Hayes's relationship. similar in every parish. The difference in this case is that she kept the child, her eldest, because of the backing of her family.
What had Haye's virginity got to do with a tribunal investigating garda incompetence?
I can guarantee you one thing, things haven’t changed that much, someone having a child with a married man or woman today would still be severely frowned on. At least today the welfare of the child is what comes first. Wording is important here too, it’s nearly always “she had a child with a married man” (gasp, pretend shock). The pressures may be a thing of the past but the connotation is still alive and healthy unfortunately.
What do you mean "the wrong witness was being cross-examined"??? Joanne Hayes was the PRIMARY witness in the Tribunal of Enquiry into the actions of Gardai!! After all, she was the one who had confessed to the most serious crime--murder--even though forensic evidence and common sense showed she could not possibly have committed it. You may not have liked the line of questioning but you can't deny she was a key witness. She was there!!!
The article by Michael O'Regan that you quoted is ignorant BS for the most part. Perhaps the only insightful passage is the one that says "those who were young in the 1980s were horrified by the tales that they had heard of the grim 1950s, yet most failed to stand up for a young Kerry woman, Joanne Hayes, who faced a tsunami of patriarchy and the trumpeting of values soon shown afterwards to have feet of clay."
The implication being that those who are young today might be just as horrified looking back at how things were in the 1980s and wonder how people could behave like that.....and then behave in a very similar way themselves.
You might think that a young woman who had conducted for years an affair with a married colleague, and who continued in that relationship even after they had had a child together and her lover refused to leave his wife and children, might be treated less judgmentally by a sworn tribunal of enquiry today. (Don't count on it) But I rather suspect that the "tsunami" of self-righteous and condemnatory questioning to which she would be subjected by cross-examining lawyers today would be informed by the "trumpeting" of a rather different set of values. eg racism, homophobia, trans-skepticism etc
And the replacement of the "patriarchy" by an army of female lawyers wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. If you are old enough to remember the tribunal, imagine Nell McCafferty with a law degree. If you are not, imagine Michelle from Derry Girls with a similar qualification and being cross examined by that lethal tongue. Doesn't bear thinking about!!
And can you be sure that some of these values won't be shown to have "feet of clay" in coming years? Maybe people in 40 years time will look back on today's highly sensitive, quick-to-outrage, cancel-culture society and think "God what an awful time! I'm glad I live in the '60s"
Agreed, it probably is a form of strategic tactic by the gardai, for reasons only known to them. I just want to say that the gardai of today aren’t a bunch of self important dicks, maybe some are, but they’re gardai because they want to be gardai not because they were forced into it or it was the only job they could get. There always will be the odd dick but by and large they’re professional, courteous and helpful.
It's a bit of a Garda tactic in high-profile cases to shake-out further witnesses and statements via the media by making a noisy arrest, tipping off the media to it and having accompanying press-conference.
Red tops and Gardai alike love that stuff. "Top Cops Close-in on Killer" headlines etc etc. Given that the new(ish) cold case squad is responsible for this case, you'd feel they want to eek out some sort of win in this case by whatever means they can, even if they're operating off a weak case.
Whether such a tactic was and is appropriate in this particular circumstances given the sensitivities involved and the previous bungling of the case is an open question.
And also adding a big fat IFs and ANDs to his reluctant acceptance....
Asked if in light of the DNA evidence, he now accepts this was not the case, Mr O’Carroll said: “I’ve always said – yes, if there was definitive evidence.
“I was never happy with the blood grouping – but DNA, I have to accept, that is finite proof.
“If they have taken the DNA from Baby John, and it is tied in and definitive, and they have obviously used outside agencies for objectivity and reliability, well then, that’s the end of it.”
Always an IF.
There were names posted here until Boards mods removed the post.
I don't know about private discussion, it's all maybes like everything here
Im assuming they wanted surprise arrests and separate questioning
Probably had a few curve balls to throw at them
A much softer approach is called for- a quiet discussion around the birth of baby John and his whereabouts in the days before his discovery might have brought some new information- or maybe not, who knows- then if needs must, arrest for suspicion of murder- but I don’t think this particular move was a constructive way of obtaining information
The media also had their role to play in turning both of those cases in to absolute circuses (irony enough that Bailey was part of the yellow-pack press at the time).
I read that at the time the people of Abbeydorney blocked the roads leading to the Hayes' house to prevents journalists from swarming them.
It kind of gets to the heart of what justice is for. Is it for the victims or is it some sort of grotesque show and perverse entertainment?
Honestly, even now in 2023, I think the Gardai could have conducted these arrests quietly and not made a media hullabaloo about it. If the couple were/are to be charged, call a press conference then and tip-off all the journalists you want.
It reminds me of the Sophie Du Plantier case, where the leading Garda that worked on the case, is 100% convinced to this day that Ian Bailey is guilty, but without a single shred of actual evidence. That's not how the Justice system is meant to work.
“All I am saying is that were a similar enquiry to be held today, under oath and with serious wrong doing being alleged, then witnesses would be liable to equally harsh cross-examination.”
The wrong person was being cross-examined, charges against Hayes had already been dropped, the tribunal was set up to look at how the Gardai handled the case.
Anyway it wouldn’t be allowed today, tribunal or trial;
Shameful that Detective Garda Gerry O'Carroll STILL will not apologise for the hurt he caused by his insistence up to last Friday that Joana Hayes gave birth to twins that had two different sets of DNA
Hopefully he will be known from now one as that "Very stupid and incompetent former garda"
and that's as nice a way of putting it as I can do.
He is what is wrong with the garda. A total refusal to apologise even when it is beyond all doubt whatsoever that he was entirely wrong. Maybe the Hayes family can sue him personally for defamation
Because someone told him. It's not secret information as such - it just can't be published in the media. But it's known to plenty enough people (current guards, the solicitor and his staff, media, neighbours, employers of the parents).
A person charged with murder is considered innocent until the prosecution PROVE, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant is guilty. The burden of proving guilt is down to the prosecution. The defendant does not need to prove innocence! They ARE innocent until proven otherwise.
The DPP are unable to bring cases to court unless they have case to prove. This is why files are sent to DPP, to see if there is enough evidence to bring case.
OMG why would anyone do that
As a retired detective, how has he been given the names of the couple, that have not been identified publicly?
Totally.
All we / the authorities know are who the parents are- there may post mortem evidence that points to how the baby met his death-but everything after that is simple conjecture. Never ask never tell May have been the approach here.
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