This blog is my analysis of what I have heard about the case. It is an objective view. I don’t have a connection with anyone involved or with the area in which Mary Boyle disappeared. I am an observer.
I had been aware of campaigning by Margo O'Donnell, Ann Doherty (Mary’s twin sister), Gemma O'Doherty and others on the matter. The documentary by Gemma O'Doherty appears to include most of what I had heard about the matter.
The documentary, titled “Mary Boyle: The Untold Story”, can be viewed on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vGORoCbpXw
This blog makes some references to sections of that documentary. I use the convention “(YT mm:ss)” to indicate the sections. e.g. (YT 01:02) = Drag the progress bar in the video to 1 minutes, 2 seconds.
I also introduce other sources and my own commentary.
I include maps, satellite images and Street View images from Google Maps and Google Earth to illustrate the nature of the surrounding land and nearby road systems.
You can reach me via Twitter @FauxMole
Why this blog?
Following the release of the documentary, mainstream and social media appear to me to be focusing on two aspects
- Whether or not a politician interfered with the Garda investigation in order to prevent close questioning of the (extended) family – and whether on not there is a political and mainstream media omerta about that and about the case in general..
- A general discounting that could be summarised as “Hearsay is not Evidence”
On (1), the truth or not of interference is a side-show. It’s a distraction - for now at least. It’s a “If I was going there, I wouldn’t start from here.”
What matters is that to my analysis, the Garda investigation appears to have been particularly lacking. Over the years they appear to have expended most energy on trying to fit up ‘a stranger in town’ rather than working on the basis that most people killed in mysterious circumstances turn out to have been killed by someone known to them. It goes beyond statistics. There appear to be strange conflicts in statements and reported statements.
Even if there was no political interference, the investigations appears to have been conducted as if there had been. It walks like a duck, etc.
On (2), that’s correct. Hearsay is not evidence. Suspicions, emotions and gut feelings are not evidence.
The problem is that in order to have sufficient evidence, one has to be enabled and motivated to go wherever and look for that evidence. In the absence of that enablement coupled with motivation, we end up with mostly hearsay.
O’Doherty seems motivated, but she is not enabled to oblige family, neighbours or anybody to answer questions. She is not enabled to review Garda records.
It is not reasonable to object to things being ‘only hearsay’ if one is ignoring that fullest evidence was not sought by those whose job it was to look for it in the first place.
In the case of Mary Boyle, it seems to me that sufficient evidence was not looked for by the Gardai. The reason for this is not necessarily one of outside interference by a political or powerful figure.
I have an inquiring mind. There are many matters in the world that could be inquired into, but time is limited. This affair grabbed my interest because it involves minds that did not and do not seem to be as inquiring as they ought to be. Detectives are paid to have inquiring minds. Journalist also - in theory anyway.
The blog is deliberately titled “Mary Boyle Questions”. It describes questions that I think should have logically arisen in the investigation. It does not accuse any particular individuals of deliberate wrongdoing – which would be “Mary Boyle Answers”. It simply raises questions that would assist in eliminating various theories.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” ~ Sherlock Holmes – The Sign of the Four
Bare Facts:
Mary Boyle, her parents and siblings were visiting the maternal grandparents’ home on the 17th and 18th March 1977.After lunch on the 18th, Mary stayed indoors to help with the dishes while her siblings and cousins went outside. About 3:30 PM, her mother noticed that Mary was missing.
Nobody saw her leave. One person claims to have seen her outside but heading back towards the house. That might have been about 3 PM.
She disappeared. There has been no indication since that she is alive. No remains have been found.
The land in the area was rough and boggy. Hundreds of people joined in searches of the surrounding area. Sub-aqua teams checked ponds and lakes.
Those searches should have found something if it had been a case of Mary simply wandering about and falling into some hole or water and then not being in a state to call for help even when immediate searches calling out for her were done.
If a lone accident is not in question, then the next step is to consider that some person(s) was involved in her disappearance.
Most people who are killed in mysterious circumstances turn out to have been killed by someone they know. Apparently – straight out of the box without knowing anything much - there’s a 50%/60% chance or better that the victim knew the (as yet unknown) killer. It seems that police forces around the world consider this when initiating an investigation.
One sample article:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/domestic-violence-murder-stats
You're more likely to be killed by someone you know than by a stranger, and you'll probably be at home when it happens.
The numbers here are from the US, but we’re human the world over.
“Between 2005 and 2010, 60 percent of all violent injuries in this country were inflicted by loved ones or acquaintances. And 60 percent of the time those victimizations happened in the home. In 2011, 79 percent of murders reported to the FBI (in which the victim-offender relationship was known) were committed by friends, loved ones, or acquaintances. And in 2009, most of the homicides for which the FBI has location data were committed in the home. Of the 3.5 million assaults and murders against family members between 1998 and 2002 (the last time such a study was done), almost half were crimes against spouses. Eleven percent were against children.”
A Stranger
For whatever reasons, the Garda investigation seems to be concentrated on the theory of Mary being taken and killed by a stranger.
There are two major problems with this.
1. The area is remote. The narrow adjacent road is unlikely to be used except by locals and people with a legitimate purpose in being there.
2. It depends on Mary being on the road, or at least in a field right beside it and visible through the hedgerows – just at the time that this stranger is passing.
There is further problem. For Mary to be even at the closest part of the road to the house, she would have to walk a distance.
There is something that would discourage her from walking any distance. A description of her clothing on the day is given at (YT 14:10). That ends with “and was wearing wellington boots that were a size too big for her”.
Try it.
I have occasion to go to a small farm, where occasionally I have reason to cross rough grassy ground. If that ground happens to be wet, I would end up with my shoes and trouser ends being soaked. At the door of the house I have a choice between two pairs of wellingtons to borrow.Mother-in-law’s boots are a size too small. If wearing thin socks, I can just about squeeze my feet in. They are a pain to get on and off.
Father-in-law’s boot are a size too big – or maybe two. I can slip into those easily.
Strangely enough, the ‘too small’s are preferable. Clumping around in the ‘too big’s is a pain. It’s more a shuffle than a walk, being conscious of my soles lifting off the boots and the upper part of my feet lifting the boots.
For very short distance of say 10s of meters, the ‘too big’ are acceptable. For anything involving more than that and/or something involving exertion, the ‘too small’ are absolutely preferable.
This factor might be a consideration in any proposed scenario that tries to explain her disappearance.
An adult walking on even ground does about 3 mph on average.
A six-year-old might do about 2 mph – particularly if wearing wellingtons 1 size too big.
Over rough ground with intervening walls/fences/ditches to negotiate, speed is going to drop considerably.
Here is a satellite view of the area immediately around the house.
Once you get on the ground via Google StreetView, you will see that it is far from that. This is not easy walking ground.
The road sections highlighted in blue indicate where the Google StreetView car has been. On the Google Maps site, you can drag the ‘pegman’ to a position on a road to see what you would see if actually standing on the ground. By tapping/dragging, you can look around. You can move along the road. Try this link:
https://www.google.ie/maps/@54.5177715,-8.0997261,830m/data=!3m1!1e3
To skip the map and 'stand' directly at a point on the road between the McCauly (neighbour) house and the lake try this link:
https://www.google.ie/maps/@54.5172867,-8.097403,3a,75y,271.45h,80.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxusgPV9iubVVsVuZY2VLow!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
That has you looking West. On your left the land slopes up to where the lake lies. Turn left to go up to the lakeside. Turn right to go North past the McCauley house and then on to the lane leading to the Gallagher house.
NB: Images you get from Google will be current(ish). Vegetation and buildings could be considerably different in 1977. Houses built since 1977 are fairly obvious when you look at them.
However, the county council probably has not spent millions in the meantime making the roads narrower and planting grass in the centre of them.
Mary Walking?
Using the Ruler/Path function in Google Earth, I measure 0.4 miles from the house along what seems to be mostly a private lane to the public road. It might take her about 12 minutes if she didn’t dawdle along the way.
You can use to Google Maps to “walk” the last part of that lane to the road. This link has you standing in the lane, a gate behind you (nearly half-way to the house) and the road ahead.
https://www.google.ie/maps/@54.5202339,-8.1028179,3a,60y,90.02h,85.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWgAvbkG3OM7mxTwW1zfNZw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
If you turn right at the road, you can “walk” along the road past the neighbours McCauleys on your right and then on to the lake. Take note of the rising ground up to the lake and the nature of the land deeper in between McCauleys and the lake.
A window of opportunity for a stranger to come along the road and see her would open about 12 minutes after she left the house. If she turned right to go South, the window closes soon after the alarm was raised at about 3:30 PM. It seems that Uncle Gerry took Mary’s father’s car soon after that, drove to the lake and stopped there.
The problem is that I don’t know when Mary left the house apart from it being some time after she stayed to help with the dishes. Nobody saw her leave.Where *exactly* was everybody at the time?
Presumably the Gardai would nave narrowed down the times via questioning of all in the household. That information is not public.
30 minutes after leaving the house and walking South she might be midway along the road between the lane leading to the house and the entrance to the neighbours house
After 60 minutes of steady walking she might be well past the lake and nearing the junction with a lane joining the road from her left (the East). Bear in mind that the stretch up to the level of the lake is noticeably uphill (and her wellies were too big).
The duration of the window of opportunity is important. It narrows down the times that any observers of movements along that road need to be sure of what they saw or the might have missed.
There is a more definite start point of approximately 3 PM, with options on routes taken, but I’ll get to that later when considering the possibility of Mary being killed by someone known to her. Yes. That order of consideration is ‘wrong’ by proper procedure, but it works for this blog.
The window would highlight times that vehicles were noticed on that road. The Gardai apparently checked out the vehicles so would presumably have the times.
At (YT 24:58) we see Det Sgt Aiden Murray. He was in charge of Special Branch in the area. It happened in an era of high security in Donegal due to the conflict in NI. He says his area was very active at the time.
This is followed by Sgt Martin Collins saying that there were permanent checkpoints on all traversible cross-border routes. It couldn’t be more heavily policed.
There were very few cars in area at the time, very few houses. “All vehicles that were seen on that stretch of road were checked out and eliminated from inquiry”.
I have seen references to a man named Vincent Coughlan, now deceased. Apparently he was cutting trees beside that road and was there all day. His position was either opposite the laneway from the grandparents house or further south along the road just past the neighbouring (McCauley) house.
Apparently he saw only three vehicles, one of them being the red Cortina belonging to Mary’s father but driven by her uncle Gerry up to the lake after Mary was known to be missing.
Perhaps a small child walking past might not have been noticed by him if he was concentrating on work. A vehicle would be another matter entirely.
Two men were fishing in the lake at the time. They might have been in a position to see what vehicles had passed – and perhaps even notice a small child walking by.
I have also heard about someone infirm who passed the day by looking out of a window at the world (including the road) outside.
Presumably the Gardai had all details.
Certainly, this seems a very quiet narrow road where everything would be noticed.
Any vehicles approaching each other would have a problem. Either someone backs off to a gateway or both have to move slowly over the nearside verge. Any stranger would get thoroughly eyeballed. Anything for a bit of gossip.
Years ago, I lived beside a quiet road. It was not a very minor road, such as the one running through the area in question here . It was two-lane but not many people lived out beyond us. My wife was a housewife while our children were young. She had a game. She could tell me - just from the sound – which car had driven past and also who was driving it if was a shared car.
Why would any strangers be passing along that road?
This is how I developed a feeling for the nature of that roadway. I would recommend this to anyone of an inquiring mind.
Google Maps is far better at smoothly serving up Street View journeys than is Google Earth.
I “walked” the length of that North-South road, stopping at places to look over the fences.
Images are 2016, so notice new houses and buildings that would have not been there in 1977. Again, the Council probably has not spent money in the meantime making the road narrower and planting grass in the centre.
All roads lead to Rome, but this is not really a road that anyone but locals would use to get to and from Rome.
Over the years, Gardai and reporters/journalists have proposed two specific strangers.
Brian McMahon
(YT 49:33)Arrested and questioned in October 2014 (37 years after Mary disappeared). He was serving a sentence in the Midlands Prison at the time, and taken to Mullingar for questioning.
(YT 50:23) has Assistant Commissioner Kieran Kenny saying “New lines of evidence have emerged”.
That is followed by a description of McMahon’s unfortunate childhood and the offences for which he was sentenced in 2012.
http://www.herald.ie/news/missing-mary-boyle-is-a-mystery-to-me-reveals-paedophile-30982154.html has some detail.
He had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 35 charges of indecent assault of the boy between 1966 and June 1974 at two locations in Ballyshannon. He was convicted by a jury of 31 of the charges.
McMahon was six years older than the victim who was aged 10 when the offences started. McMahon was also convicted of one charge of indecently assaulting the boy's younger brother, between September 1973 and September 1974, also in Ballyshannon. The victim was aged 13 at the time.
It also includes:
He said he was linked to the case after a RTE documentary was aired and a viewer remembered McMahon pointing out the home where Mary, aged six, was last seen alive.
The story also mention that McMahon denied the charges and points to a lack of issues when he was around children in intervening years up to his conviction.
Was this Kenny’s “New lines of inquiry have emerged?”
According to McMahon’s account of events at (YT 51:48) there seems to have been no more than that.
It was put to him that he walked to the Gallaghers, abducted Mary and took her away on foot.
In 1977, he was a soldier stationed in Finner Camp – about 12km from the scene of Mary’s disappearance. Having no car, he just happened to walk to that particular remote spot. Check out the maps, and the strange route that he would have to take.
He then happened to come across Mary who happened to be walking along the road. “And Lo and Behold – there was your prize catch!” It seems to me that being on foot, he would have to dispose of the body very close by and that he might have some difficulty in hiding her body so well that extensive local searches never found it.
He's hardly likely to have been wandering the countryside with her body slung over his shoulder.
Whatever about such “evidence” - which rather sounds like something that would score less than “hearsay” on a 0 to 10 scale - the arrest and questioning made for great theatre.
He was apparently taken from the prison to Mullingar in a Garda car at high speed with siren blaring and blue flashing light.
On the return trip to prison, the press were waiting.
In 2015, the DPP decided that no charges could be brought against McMahon relating to Mary Boyle. This is perhaps unsurprising.
Was it mere coincidence that O’Donnell and Doherty were gaining publicity around the time that the Gardai decided to flag McMahon?
Robert Black
Black was a particularly evil individual. The documentary discusses him from (YT 55:06)An RTE Crime Reporter, Barry Cummins wrote a book concerning missing people. “Missing” – published 2003
A section of that links Black to Mary’s disappearance.
One quote:
If a local suspect could not be found, the other possibility, and one that remains to this day, is that a person from outside the locality, possibly a foreigner, abducted Mary Boyle.
Ok. BUT
1. No great effort appears to have been made to find a local suspect, That would be uncomfortable.
2. A person from outside the locality would be far more acceptable. It’s like in the old cowboy movies. Townspeople in uproar because someone has been killed or something valuable stolen. Best thing to do is lynch – or put on trial and then lynch - some stranger. Townspeople will not be made to feel uncomfortable, even if some people might have very strong suspicions about, y’know, Sam.
3. Foreigner! Now you’re talking. Awful people those foreigners. For extra points, the foreigner could y’know, have a sort of swarthy complexion. They’re worse.
That guy Cummins is caught in a medieval mind-warp.
Black is good. Not black by complexion, but certainly black by name and nature. He was an extremely nasty person and convicted for a series of sex assaults and murders of young girls. He’d be ideal. “Certainly a suspect.”
AND
“It is the informed opinion of Gardai and police in the North that Robert Black was in Ireland in early 1977 and was most probably in the North the day Mary Boyle disappeared four or five miles from the border.”
At (YT 57:40) we have a snippet of Barry Cummins talking to Cathal Mac Coille on Morning Ireland (January 2016)
“Nothing tangible to show that he was in County Donegal at that time, but certainly it would have fitted his modus operandi.”They have no evidence that Black was even anywhere in Ireland then, nevermind in the North. Given that they mention the border, they must be implying that Black was maybe possibly perhaps in Northern Ireland. He would maybe possibly perhaps have crossed a border which at the time had 24/7 checkpoints on every traversible roadway. He might have been carrying a sign "Not a British Agent" in case he bumped into an IRA active service unit.
All of that is really careless and sloppy-minded. Rather like for McMahon above, what we have there is something that would score less than “hearsay” on a 0 to 10 scale.
It might satisfy the credulous, the weak-minded and anyone who was anxious to avoid the truth.
Presumably this drivel is the basis of “the informed opinion of Gardai and police in the North”.
Black did indeed have a very clear modus operandi (MO). It's well documented. That MO is a clear indication that he had nothing to do with Mary Boyle.
There is a good description of Black and his doings at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Black_(serial_killer)
I’ll summarise the key points as related to Mary Boyle here:
Black was initially arrested – red-handed in the act – accidentally and entirely due to his own misfortune. His misfortune was that he was following his own well-established modus operandi at the time. He was arrested by police who were not looking for him in particular.
Following arrest, he was rapidly connected to a series of child murders due the work that an extremely professional multi-region police taskforce were already putting in to try and solve a number of child murders.
One new thing that they had done was to create a special computer system to hold records on the killings that up until then would have been recorded in enormous card index files. The new computer system was available UK-wide across four separate police forces.
They had already found important similarities between some of the killings that they were investigating.
Due to the distances involved, police suspected that the murderer of Maxwell and Hogg worked as a lorry or van driver, or a sales representative, which required him to travel extensively to locations which included the Scottish Borders. Both girls had been bound and likely subjected to a sexual assault prior to the murders, and each had been wearing white ankle socks at the time of her abduction, which may have triggered a fetish in the perpetrator's psyche. Due to the geographical and circumstantial nature of the offences, the killer was most likely an opportunist.
Based upon the day of the week when Maxwell and Hogg had been abducted (a Friday), the killer was likely tied to a delivery or production schedule. Following the August 1982 discovery of Maxwell's body, numerous transport firms with links between Scotland and the Midlands of England were contacted, and drivers were questioned about their whereabouts on the date of her abduction. This line of inquiry was repeated following the discovery of Hogg's body, but in both instances failed to yield results.
They also had psychological profiles generates by FBI specialists. It’s quite uncanny to read the profiles after having read the actual details of Black’s life.
Black’s MO was that he was working as a long-distance delivery driver. While going about his normal business on normal routes between delivery locations, he kept an opportunistic eye out for young girls to snatch.
He would bundle them into the back of his van, tie and gag them. He kept the necessary materials for this ready in his van. He would then immediately continue on with his legitimate business. Somewhere along his normal route he would pull into a lay-by or some spot where the parking of his van would be unremarkable. He would then assault his victim for the first time. He would then carry on with his legitimate business. He might commit further assaults along the way. Eventually, he would dispose of the body – again at some point along his legitimate route, but normally at some considerable distance (even over 100 miles) from the site of the abduction. Many of his victim’s bodies were found. He does not seem to have made much effort to conceal them. They would be dumped in a body of water or left under some cover of vegetation – and always close to a road that he would normally use.
His arrest was accidental and a result of his following his MO.
While on his way to make a delivery, he saw and snatched a girl. He bundled her into the van and tied her up. Then he continued on his way. He did not realise that someone had noticed him and had called the police. The police arrived on the scene and started to collect information. Suddenly, the witness saw the very same van approaching from the direction in which it had disappeared earlier. Black had made his delivery and was returning by his normal route.
The van was stopped. The girl was still tied up in the back. He had assaulted her along the way but she was still alive.
Once they had Black, they could see that he matched the MO and psychological profiles that had been developed for a number of killings.
Since 1976, Black had been delivering for Poster, Dispatch and Storage Ltd, a Hoxton-based firm whose fleet delivered posters—typically depicting pop stars—and billboard advertisements to locations across the UK, Ireland and continental Europe
They then went to the company and painstakingly went through years of records. They found deliveries that matched locations and dates. They found fuel receipts that matched Black to those deliveries, dates and abduction times.
What has this got to do with the possibility of Black having abducted and killed Mary Boyle?
But he abducted Mary, right?
Nope. There’s a big problem with that.
Black wasn’t a predator. He didn’t roam around looking for victims.
He was an opportunist. He killed while going about his normal business on his normal driving routes.
For example, Black was convicted for the murder of a girl in County Antrim. She had been abducted, assaulted and dumped in a manner that matched the MO that police in the UK mainland had identified. That murder happened in 1981.
Black was summoned for the killing in 2009 and went on trial in Armagh in 2011. Records of deliveries and his signature on fuel receipts were a major part of the evidence. The murders also matched the MO of other killings that he had already been convicted for, but it was the receipts that provided the evidence.
The only way that Black could have been on that road would have been that he was making deliveries in County Donegal on the day and the road would have been part of a route that any normal delivery driver would have used between deliveries or on his way home after the last delivery.
It does not matter in the slightest if “It is the informed opinion of Gardai and police in the North that Robert Black was in Ireland in early 1977 and was most probably in the North the day Mary Boyle disappeared four or five miles from the border.”
That sort of “evidence” is only good for creating a distraction.It's not evidence. It's hearsay.
Have the Gardai tried to determine what businesses, if any, in County Donegal were customers of Poster Dispatch? They would be buying large posters for advertising billboards and displays – or perhaps smaller display posters.
Delivery records for March 18th 1977? Fuel receipts ?
Even if there were such records, is it at all reasonable that a long-distance delivery driver would normally choose to take that narrow grass-in-the-middle road that led past the Gallagher house?
That would be insane.
Someone driving from mid/North Donegal, having made a delivery, and heading for Belleek to make another delivery, for example could take the N15 to Ballyshannon and then the N3 to Belleek. By leaving the N15 about 4 miles short of Ballyshannon, and heading directly at Beleek via the minor roads, they could shave 1 mile or perhaps up to 2 miles from their journey.
They would forsake the easy comfortable driving along this
..in order to turn left after that building, and drive through some of this
..and then drive through a lot of this
All that gear-changing and potential hold-ups involved would be fun – especially to someone who has perhaps just driven clear across NI from the ferryport and is heading back that way again.
Or maybe he’s heading to a delivery in the South – in which case he would not be heading over the border to Belleek.
Even if someone could fit up some deliveries and receipts, it still wasn’t Black. That road was so far from his well-established MO that it might as well have been on the Moon.
Additionally, two fishermen, a tree-cutter and perhaps someone who spends most of his day by a window never saw his van pass along that road.
Not that such logic should be understandable by the cretins however.
RTE commissioned a program in 2008. “Cracking Crime”. Mary Boyle was the feature.
Cummins (he of the medieval foreign strangers) was a key contributor. An Garda Siochana were thanked for their assistance in the making of the program.
Tsk! This is a major highway used with some difficulty and time-loss by long-distance drivers to shave nearly two miles off of a journey of many hundreds of miles. No proper pedestrian pavements.
RTE would have spent significant money on this garbage. It doesn't stand up to examination. Are they just compliant sock puppets for influential people who want thing to go away?
Again, Gardai have gone to ridiculous lengths to point the finger at “nobody local”, and compliant media have gone along with it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch there are all sorts of questions that should have been asked.
Where exactly was everybody around the time that Mary disappeared? Nobody saw her leave. Nobody saw her follow Gerry. Nobody saw Gerry either for that matter. Retired Gardai doubt his account. How to confirm part of it? Was there anyone at the McCauley house who would have seen him return the ladder. If so, when exactly was that?It might be distressing for the family to explore options in which Mary might have been killed by somebody present in the household, but proper investigations demand that.
This is not to accuse anyone of the killing, but to examine all possibilities and eliminate them.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” ~ Sherlock Holmes – The Sign of the Four
Given that people seem to have been spread about out of sight of each other, someone there is in the perfect position to pull off the ‘perfect murder’.
If that excavation was too risky to use immediately with people around the house, the body could be stowed in a prepared hiding place and put under the excavation later.
It would be done in seconds. Check all is clear. A blow to the head. Only need to stun. Into a hole and fill it in on top of her. She would die while pinned under the weight.
If there is some premeditation, a hole in the right place is ready. It looks like part of quite normal and routine work that is plainly ongoing.
Even if there is risk that the coast was not entirely clear, maybe the risk of not killing her was felt to be greater.
To write this and to read this is shocking. Is it more shocking than suggesting that Black took her – when the detail of vile treatment to which he would have subjected her is well known?
When people realised that Mary was missing, all attention would be been directed outwards. Did she wander away and fall into a hole or pool? Hundreds join in the search of surrounding land. Sub-aqua teams check bodies of water. No sign.
Well then, it must have been “a person from outside the locality, possibly a foreigner”
Who dares to suggest that members of An Garda Siochana might have prevented a proper investigation? For shame to suggest such a thing. Some Gardai have sacrificed their lives in the performance of their duty.
Ask the Honourable Mr. Justice Frederick R. Morris - he of the Morris Tribunal that inquired into the activities of Gardai in Donegal.
http://www.morristribunal.ie
6.09
The Tribunal has been staggered by the amount of indiscipline and insubordination it has found in the Garda force. There is a small, but disproportionately influential, core of mischief-making members who will not obey orders, who will not follow procedures, who will not tell the truth and who have no respect for their officers. An Garda Síochána is an organisation necessarily vested with wide-ranging powers that impose on the constitutional rights of the citizens of Ireland. It must have, as in a
military organisation, accountability and unwavering discipline…..
6.05
…..Without a management structure being restored to the Gardaí that is based on strict compliance with orders, and immediate accountability, the danger is extreme that what the Tribunal has reported on in Donegal will be repeated; and that such conduct will multiply if allowed to go unchecked.
The reports feature the likes of “evidence of lies, malice and incompetence”, “evidence of willful blunders, gross negligence, laziness, emotionally wrong-headed rushes to judge people as guilty and a determination by some parties to ensure that, even if there was no evidence, that the suspicions formulated were going to stick and stick permanently"
If someone’s third cousin once removed twice shy was going to be incommoded by some investigation, is it possible that some Gardai would subvert that inquiry?
It’s not just possible. It seems very probable.
Is it possible that senior management might suspect such but avoid doing anything? Would they even indulge in coverup and misdirection?
Even recently, the reaction of AGS and our betters to Garda whistleblowers was to attempt to suppress their "disgusting" behaviour.
It’s not just possible. It seems very probable.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” ~ Sherlock Holmes – The Sign of the Four
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