The Kerry Babies Case

If that’s the case, that his family knew you would wonder how it was kept such a dark secret for four decades without anyone cracking. I presume the mothers family would have known about the pregnancy. Who had that much power to keep people from talking for this length of time?
The case is just baffling from start to finish. How could you sleep at night knowing what happened that poor baby? And left unidentified with no name and just go with your life and play happy families.

I see your problem. You think the Gardai said nothing about the DNA because that part of the IT report was attributed to a "Garda source". Do you understand that the "Garda source" is the Garda in the press office who just issued the statement and then followed-up with the juicy bits off the record to the IT?

If you think this IT report is just a re-hash of the Garda statement from a year earlier and has nothing to do with the solicitor's outrageous claims about the DNA a week earlier in the Indo - well, bless you!

From what I saw in the Indo headlines ( the full article is behind a paywall) investigators have recommended charges to be brought. I sincerely hope they are.
That couple must know what happened to their baby. They weren’t teenagers at the time. The narrative up to a couple of years ago was that the parent or parents were very young. We know now that wasn’t true. They let Joanne Hayes be blamed for their actions.
The guards don’t come out of it well either for that matter.

Here is the full article

The garda investigation into a ­Kerry couple who were arrested on suspicion of murder of an infant child more than 40 years ago has concluded, with a file sent to the ­Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

The conclusion of the investigation comes three years after the arrest of the middle-aged couple. They deny all allegations put to them, their solicitor Padraig O’Connell has said.

The file on the murder of the infant, known as Baby John, in 1984 was submitted to the DPP within the last two months and it’s understood that it recommended a range of possible charges.

The investigation file is understood to include DNA test results that gardaí claim prove the couple are the infant’s parents.

Detectives have also interviewed family members and long-standing friends and associates of the couple.

A source said the file went to the DPP “in the last couple of months”, and it will be up to the DPP to decide whether any charges should be brought against the couple.

“It is a matter that will likely be considered at a senior level in the office of the DPP, given the sensitive and complex nature of the case and the high level of public interest in it,” the source said.

Mr O’Connell, a Killarney-based ­solicitor who has represented the couple since their arrests in March 2023, said last night that while he had no official communication with An Garda Síochána, he believed “anecdotally” that the file on the case had gone to the DPP.

He criticised the gardaí’s “extraordinary delay” in completing the investigation.

“My clients are trying to live a life that they cannot live because of this black cloud hanging over them. It is a black cloud of despair due to the delay, which is totally unconscionable,” he said.

The Garda Press Office was contacted for comment yesterday afternoon.

The murder of Baby John goes to the heart of what became the Kerry babies scandal, a shameful episode in Ireland’s history.

The infant washed up on White Strand beach in Cahersiveen in April 1984, with 28 stab wounds to his body and a broken neck. He was three days old when he was killed and his body was found two days later, according to the then state pathologist John Harbison.

He was christened Baby John by a local undertaker who buried the unclaimed infant in the graveyard in Cahersiveen with local school children forming a guard of honour.

The baby’s murder led to a notoriously flawed garda investigation that led to Joanne Hayes being wrongly accused of giving birth to and killing the baby, based on false confessions. The State eventually apologised to the Hayes family in 2020 leading to the new investigation into the killing of Baby John.

New DNA technology was deployed to trace the infant’s family. Local people were asked to volunteer DNA samples. Although the couple were not asked to provide DNA, they came to the attention of gardaí when DNA offered by a relative offered a partial match.

Subsequent inquiries brought gardaí to the Kerry couple’s home on March 23, 2023. Mr O’Connell, said the knock on the door came as “a bolt out of the blue”.

The couple had finished their day’s work and had eaten their evening meal when gardaí arrived shortly after 7pm.

They were told they were being arrested under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act on suspicion of murder of a child.

They were driven in separate garda cars to two different garda stations in the county. According to their solicitor at the time, they were stunned.

The woman was in her 50s and her partner in his 60s at the time. They are not married but have two adult children who they raised in a small town in the county.

Both parents worked and were active contributors to their local communities. Their children attended local schools and were involved in local sports clubs.

Mr O’Connell has described them as people who were never in a garda station and never had so much as a penalty point on their licence.

While in custody, the couple volunteered their DNA. Their samples were rushed to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Dublin and processed while they were still in custody.

Gardaí say the results established the couple as parents of the murdered baby. But the DNA does not establish who murdered the infant.

The couple denied the allegations put to them. After 24 hours they were released without charge. The couple could not return home.

Their house was sealed off by gardaí for a forensic search while rumours swirled about their identities.

Mr O’Connell said at the time that the wallpaper had been ripped off the walls and the floorboards were upturned, as though gardaí were searching for some sort of memento of the infant.

“The house was absolutely ransacked,” he previously told the Sunday Independent. “They would perhaps, and I speculate when I say this, be looking behind the wallpaper that might have been there for 100 years, to see if there was a photograph of a child or a lock of hair.”

When the couple eventually got back into their home, they had to install CCTV around the property to protect their privacy. They were unable to return to work and withdrew from the community.

The couple’s family life was also profoundly impacted. While they were still in custody, detectives began contacting relatives and friends to find out what, if anything, they knew about events in 1984.

The Kerry house Baby John’s alleged mother grew up in was searched.

Speaking to the Sunday Independent yesterday, Mr O’Connell said “in his opinion” the gardaí’s efforts to speak to friends and family was looking to “put the ultimate pressure on my clients”.

His clients have lived a “solitary existence”, he said, since their arrests made national and international headlines.

Once again, the media give space to this shameless solicitor without challenging him in any way. He tells us nothing about the murder and shows utter disregard for the horror of this case. Another low for our media.

A pointless insult exposing your own ignorance!

I said the Gardai were to blame 40 years ago but that history makes no difference to the guilt/ innocence of the parents now that DNA identified them positively. If the DPP cannot charge them now it is a humiliating disgrace to our legal system, not to the Gardai who gathered the evidence.

This is a highly charged case the media are going to say nothing except the facts of the case.

As for there lawyer yes he is an idiot and only in it for publicity but lawyers will always make a statement and the media can't be seen to ignore them. Is he been given too much time yes but again most media will take this carefully.

My only slight doubt of any trial is the length of time and if a trial i say it will not be with a jury

Not optimistic that anything will come of this because the couple have strong Garda connections.

Is that why their solicitor is bad-mouthing the Gardaí to the media at every opportunity?

Do you know something the media doesn’t or are you just spreading lies?

My objection is not to the media claim that there was a Garda in the family but to your claim that this is why no charges will be brought now.