The girl found on O'Connell Street

Sir Humphrey Appleby

crazygeryy wrote: »

Oh my god what an incredible waste of time money and resources. They should have just stuck her in a jail cell for a week and she would have sang like a bird.

sick comment is sick

old_aussie

After Hours, the new Lost and Found.

gctest50

Roger_007 wrote: »

Plenty of egg on Gardai faces yet again. ........

No there isn't - not an easy one in any way

could be absolutely anything eg :

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/16/health/amnesia-swedish/

catallus

Corkbah wrote: »

you can be australian and not aboriginal you know ? ….most australians are not descendants of aboriginals and are descendants of criminals sent to Oz from Ireland/England and other countries.

Seriously?

Roger_007 wrote: »

Plenty of egg on Gardai faces yet again. They released totally rubbish and lurid info about this girl, especially about her age and why she was here. No wonder they couldn't identify her. They just seem to have assumed that she was 'trafficked', and all the wild speculation seems to have stemmed from that.
I hope they have learned from this and the Roma case that assumptions are very dangerous and not what a police force should be doing.

Have you got your brain turned on at all?

What are the police supposed to "Learn from this"?

All of the info they released about this person was as accurate as was humanly possible given the facts. The rubbish and luridness was generated by the press and hysterically mis-informed members of the public who can anonymously post on internet forums.

They didn't assume she was trafficked. They sought help from the public in identifying her. All the "wild speculation" stemmed from unmoderated commentators, who fancied sticking their oar in and assuming the absolute worst about the situation.

moxin

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

sick comment is sick

One Indo commenter saying she should be arrested got 33 thumbs up and 1 down so far, Indo readers certainly different from contributors to this thread!

Eight Ball

What an embarrassment for the police force yet again. FFS it's no wonder the criminals here view them as a joke.

conorhal

Smidge wrote: »

Why did she draw pictures of abuse then?
I thought reading through this thread(before I got to the last few posts where she is identified)this....

If she was abducted as a young child and trafficked from pillar to post, over that time she would have picked up bits and pieces of the languages that her abductors spoke.
That could have been the reason that the guards were having difficulty indentifying the language she spoke ie she was speaking lots of bits of different languages.

Who knows?

She was speaking gibberish, a language that should have been easy to identify.
I knew there was something off about this case from the start, perhaps it was because I'd just seen tha excellent documentary the imposter, which has some striking similarities.....

Plazaman

Hootanany wrote: »

Keystone & Kops spring to mind serious egg on face again for commissioner Gordon.

Roger_007 wrote: »

Plenty of egg on Gardai faces yet again. They released totally rubbish and lurid info about this girl, especially about her age and why she was here. No wonder they couldn't identify her. They just seem to have assumed that she was 'trafficked', and all the wild speculation seems to have stemmed from that.
I hope they have learned from this and the Roma case that assumptions are very dangerous and not what a police force should be doing.

Eight Ball wrote: »

What an embarrassment for the police force yet again. FFS it's no wonder the criminals here view them as a joke.

So from reports in the papers this morning, it turns out that this girl is Australian with a history of mental illness. She was visiting relatives in Ireland and quite possibly had a breakdown. There is no further reason to believe that sex trafficking comes into the story. From the papers this morning it does not give the full picture regarding her broken english and drawing to the Guards but I'm sure more will be revealed in due course.

However per the papers Gardai circulated her picture on internal databases in a bid to identify her, contacted all ports, airports and train stations. Because she was wearing braces contacted all paediatric orthodontists around the country and contacted juvenile liasion officers bothe here and abroad.

If there's egg on any face, it's of those of the Garda bashers who would twist and turn any incident into a opportunity to be a voice of dissent against our police force who done evertything right including releasing the picture (regardless of quality) which paid off dividends and solved the case.

Before ye go off bashing this girl and putting her in jail for wasting police time, do a bit of research on mental illness.

antodeco

I can't really see how the Gardai are to blame. A young looking tanned girl, who obviously put on a fake accent and spoke in a fake language, would he hard to be seen as Australian. You start with the majority (or probable), then work backwards to the less obvious.

How many people on this thread could've guessed she was Australian? Or even ever thought she could've been?

myhorse

gardai did well. Just been on the news here in Aus. She is wanted in a number of states here. Is known to have 40 different identities and has made some very serious (made up) acquisitions against people

Corkbah

Eight Ball wrote: »

What an embarrassment for the police force yet again. FFS it's no wonder the criminals here view them as a joke.

how is it embarrassing ?? …the found a person who didn't want their identity known and they discovered her identity.

yes - they got some of the details wrong in their search but she was hardly co-operative with them when she refused to talk and only drew pictures of a sexual nature.

the girl in my opinion is older than they had suggested (which was obvious from the pic) …but its more than likely someone in the HSE who gave an approximate age and the gardai were happy to go with it - given that the HSE have more experience dealing with "kids".

if the girl is found to have been allowing gardai/HSE to jump to conclusions they can hardly blame her …can they ?? (if she is not suffering from any mental issues or has not suffered from a recent event - I would hope that the gardai would send her family the bill for the 2000hours of garda work and ban her from the country.)

Corkbah

myhorse wrote: »

gardai did well. Just been on the news here in Aus. She is wanted in a number of states here. Is known to have 40 different identities and has made some very serious (made up) acquisitions against people

so no doubt they australian authorities will be seeking extradition ???

Roger_007

Plazaman wrote: »

So from reports in the papers this morning, it turns out that this girl is Australian with a history of mental illness. She was visiting relatives in Ireland and quite possibly had a breakdown. There is no further reason to believe that sex trafficking comes into the story. From the papers this morning it dies not give the full picture regarding her broken english and drawing to the Guards but I'm sure more will be revealed in due course.

However per the papers Gardai circulated her picture on internal databases in a bid to identify her, contacted all ports, airports and train stations. Because she was wearing braces contacted all paediatric orthodontists around the country and contacted juvenile liasion officers bothe here and abroad.

If there's egg on any face, it's of those of the Garda bashers who would twist and turn any incident into a opportunity to be a voice of dissent against our police force who done evertything right including releasing the picture (regardless of quality) which paid off dividends and solved the case.

There is a big difference between Garda bashing and criticising their actions when they get it wrong. They seem to have just assumed that this girl was 14 or 15 years old and therefore a legal minor. How did they come to that conclusion?
I have already posted on this thread, when the photo was released, that she looked like she could be anything up to 30 years old.

myhorse

Corkbah wrote: »

so no doubt they australian authorities will be seeking extradition ???

didn't say. Just that she is from Queensland and QLD police are in contact with Irish police. Some of the pictures she drew for the Gardai show the type of claims she has made before.....

Corkbah

myhorse wrote: »

didn't say. Just that she is from Queensland and QLD police are in contact with Irish police. Some of the pictures she drew for the Gardai show the type of claims she has made before.....

well… given that information the Gardai will have to take her into custody and remove her from HSE care …so its likely she'll be before the irish courts in the next few days/weeks.

Eight Ball

Plazaman wrote: »

So from reports in the papers this morning, it turns out that this girl is Australian with a history of mental illness. She was visiting relatives in Ireland and quite possibly had a breakdown. There is no further reason to believe that sex trafficking comes into the story. From the papers this morning it does not give the full picture regarding her broken english and drawing to the Guards but I'm sure more will be revealed in due course.

However per the papers Gardai circulated her picture on internal databases in a bid to identify her, contacted all ports, airports and train stations. Because she was wearing braces contacted all paediatric orthodontists around the country and contacted juvenile liasion officers bothe here and abroad.

If there's egg on any face, it's of those of the Garda bashers who would twist and turn any incident into a opportunity to be a voice of dissent against our police force who done evertything right including releasing the picture (regardless of quality) which paid off dividends and solved the case.

Before ye go off bashing this girl and putting her in jail for wasting police time, do a bit of research on mental illness.

Where did I bash the girl over anything. Stop making things up.

Eight Ball

Corkbah wrote: »

how is it embarrassing ?? …the found a person who didn't want their identity known and they discovered her identity.

yes - they got some of the details wrong in their search but she was hardly co-operative with them when she refused to talk and only drew pictures of a sexual nature.

the girl in my opinion is older than they had suggested (which was obvious from the pic) …but its more than likely someone in the HSE who gave an approximate age and the gardai were happy to go with it - given that the HSE have more experience dealing with "kids".

if the girl is found to have been allowing gardai/HSE to jump to conclusions they can hardly blame her …can they ?? (if she is not suffering from any mental issues or has not suffered from a recent event - I would hope that the gardai would send her family the bill for the 2000hours of garda work and ban her from the country.)

It's embarrassing because they screwed up her age. For christ sake anybody could see from the photo she wasn't anywhere near 15 years old.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Corkbah wrote: »

well… given that information the Gardai will have to take her into custody and remove her from HSE care …so its likely she'll be before the irish courts in the next few days/weeks.

I doubt it, what would be the charge since if she is seriously mentally ill she would not have the Mens Rea required to have committed a criminal offence.
More likely, she will be taken into psychiatric care.

AnonoBoy

Of course we don't know all the facts so we don't know the full story but could well be that the girl indicated that she was a teenager to the Gardai.

If she is wanted and is trying to pull a scam then convincing them she's a minor would have been a good first step.

But let's not stop telling each other what should have been done and how we'd have handled it despite not actually knowing the full story and mostly working off the tabloid stories!

Ronan|Raven

So many armchair experts on here, I recommend joining the Gardaí. Your skills are wasted on boards.ie

myhorse

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

I doubt it, what would be the charge since if she is seriously mentally ill she would not have the Mens Rea required to have committed a criminal offence.
More likely, she will be taken into psychiatric care.

well she is wanted
see here
http://au.news.yahoo.com/qld/a/19713279/mystery-woman-has-40-aliases/

AnonoBoy

Eight Ball wrote: »

Where did I bash the girl over anything. Stop making things up.

He said YE not YOU. He was talking about people in general on the thread.

catallus

PurpleMonkeyDishwasher time here. Where the hell are these stories coming out of? It's not google, it's not the Irish or Australian newspapers.

Rasheed

Eight Ball wrote: »

It's embarrassing because they screwed up her age. For christ sake anybody could see from the photo she wasn't anywhere near 15 years old.

I couldn't. It was a bad quality photo. The people who assumed she was 15 seen her in person, studied her mannerisms. But sure you keep trying to make out that the guards made a hash of this when in fact they didn't.

myhorse

catallus wrote: »

PurpleMonkeyDishwasher time here. Where the hell are these stories coming out of? It's not google, it's not the Irish or Australian newspapers.

Incorrect, on national news in Aus this evening

Plazaman

Roger_007 wrote: »

There is a big difference between Garda bashing and criticising their actions when they get it wrong. They seem to have just assumed that this girl was 14 or 15 years old and therefore a legal minor. How did they come to that conclusion?
I have already posted on this thread, when the photo was released, that she looked like she could be anything up to 30 years old.

I'm assuming you were like myself in that all the information you got about this case is what you read in the papers or seen/heard reported on the news. The problem is this is drip fed information be it deliberatly by the Gardai (no police force in the world gives out every single bit of information to the media of what they are doing for operational reasons) or as a result of news outlets trying to get the best headlines.

So on the presumption that they initially got the information from the girl herself through whatever means (broken english, drawings etc) that she was the victim of sex trafficking and she was 14/15, this would be one or two lines of enquiry. Since they were following 115 and spent 2000 man hours, I doubt this was them sitting around arguing whether she was 14 or 15.

There may have been a DNA test done to check her age/race, they may have had several linguists talk to her to determine her language and country of origin, they may have had experts check her handwriting/drawings but again this is my own assumptions as an ordinary joe soap who's only investigation expertise is watching CSI and NCIS.

The point being why criticise actions when we don't know fully what actions were taken and as they have now identified the girl and know shes ill and are getting her back to her family, I can't see how they were wrong.

seamus

crazygeryy wrote: »

Oh my god what an incredible waste of time money and resources. They should have just stuck her in a jail cell for a week and she would have sang like a bird.

Yes, because throwing a potential victim of a serious sexual assault into a jail cell on their own is exactly what we should do. This isn't Saudi Arabia.

myhorse wrote: »

didn't say. Just that she is from Queensland and QLD police are in contact with Irish police. Some of the pictures she drew for the Gardai show the type of claims she has made before.....

She may or may not be a criminal but she's certainly not well.

myhorse

seamus wrote: »

seems she is not well but she has massive form

7News can reveal the woman has 40 aliases, and in the past has posed as a teenage orphan, a cancer patient and a rape victim.

well done Gardai I say. Went against what the HSE wanted and got a result

AnonoBoy

Also the point should be made that the Gardai could have suspected a lot of what's turned out to be true but would not state that in public.

Of course that doesn't fit into the "OH MY GAWD THE GARDAI ARE SO EMBARRASSING" drum that some people seem to want to bang regardless of not knowing half of what went on.

Vex Willems

Can you imagine if they treated her as an adult and she then turned out to be 14/15

Budawanny

the guards did as good a job as was possible.

cdebru

I wouldn't blame the Gardai they have to treat her as a minor until they can prove other wise.( I suspect the Gardai were less than convinced of her tale hence the photo)

But stuff never added up on this, an unidentifiable language, really ?
But could write a letter to the court thanking them ?

Braces and highlighted hair but can't say where she came from.

What is clear is that she is a scam artist, people should just get over the fact that they were conned and stop trying to persist with the "she is still a victim nonsense" .

It's not the first time its happened and it won't be the last, lets just hope this woman hasn't negatively affected the treatment someone who actually needs help will get the future.

alexonhisown

Obviously the woman got into some sort of dificulty after she left to go travelling and i am happy the police found her family.

But what sort of medical expert decided she was about 14, when in fact she in now reported to be in her early 20's.
Likewise the medical expert that said 2 roma gypsies couldnt possibly have a blond hair blue eyed child.

Tow

And just to clear it up..

http://au.news.yahoo.com/qld/a/19713279/mystery-woman-has-40-aliases/

A young woman found wandering dazed and confused on a street in Dublin has been identified as a Queenslander, wanted by police in several states.

Irish police had earlier circulated a photo hoping someone would know who she is.

"Somebody out there who may have come across this child, know this child or has any knowledge of this child will make contact with us," Ireland police officer David Taylor said.

7News can reveal the woman has 40 aliases, and in the past has posed as a teenage orphan, a cancer patient and a rape victim.

Police interstate are on their way to her parents' houses to take DNA, to confirm her identity.

Sir Humphrey Appleby

I cant understand why people are blaming the guards.
It was HSE that resisted for weeks in the High Court all Garda attempts to release the girls photo.
It was the HSE, again in the High court, who insisted that she was an extremely vulnerable minor, who needed to be protected from having her photo released.
Perhaps if the Guards had been allowed to do their job this would have been sorted weeks ago.

Corkbah

Eight Ball wrote: »

It's embarrassing because they screwed up her age. For christ sake anybody could see from the photo she wasn't anywhere near 15 years old.

if you read the start of the thread I said she looked older and suggested a bone marrow test to confirm her age ….and I got attacked for it !!

the gardai acted in the best interest of the person - deeming them a minor meant that the state could take care of her and make decisions for her, now that she is identified as a person of age she will either be taken into care in a mental institute or be charged with wasting gardai time. (most likely going to Dundrum in the coming days) …and possibly facing extradition to Oz if the gardai do not charge her in this country.

catallus

Maybe it's an organisational thing: the guards and the hse are, like every single organisation in the world, strangled by the principle of risk-aversion: in any situation, presume the risk is maximum and act accordingly. Even boards.ie isn't immune.

emmabrighton

The girl/woman is clearly unwell. Whether she is a narcissist or bi-polar or whatever, no sane person would fly to an opposite hemisphere and concoct a story just for the craic.

Will be interested to see how this pans out.

Corkbah

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

I cant understand why people are blaming the guards.
It was HSE that resisted for weeks in the High Court all Garda attempts to release the girls photo.
It was the HSE, again in the High court, who insisted that she was an extremely vulnerable minor, who needed to be protected from having her photo released.
Perhaps if the Guards had been allowed to do their job this would have been sorted weeks ago.

yeah …but we all know the HSE has many incompetent staff members …and has a record of loosing kids in their care (or kids choose to run away while in their care).

Do you honestly think anyone in the HSE will be demoted ? or sacked for making such monumental errors and fighting the Gardai for the most obvious route to identification (if the image was circulated - all the HSE had to do was stop her from viewing the papers for a few days…but I suppose thats too difficult for them too !!)

(sorry for any HSE workers reading this … but you work with some really incompetent people - some of which might even be you)

Sir Humphrey Appleby

Corkbah wrote: »

the gardai acted in the best interest of the person - deeming them a minor

As I understand it, it was the HSE, not the Gardaí, that deemed her to be a minor, and who sought and obtained court orders on that basis.

cdebru

Corkbah wrote: »

yeah …but we all know the HSE has many incompetent staff members …and has a record of loosing kids in their care (or kids choose to run away while in their care).

Do you honestly think anyone in the HSE will be demoted ? or sacked for making such monumental errors and fighting the Gardai for the most obvious route to identification (if the image was circulated - all the HSE had to do was stop her from viewing the papers for a few days…but I suppose thats too difficult for them too !!)

(sorry for any HSE workers reading this … but you work with some really incompetent people - some of which might even be you)

Stop would you ?

The HSE have to treat her as a minor and look after her best interests as a minor until it is shown she is not a minor. They were doing what they are legally obliged to do don't blame the HSE or the Gardai, blame the scam artist with 40 aliases.

Uriel.

Corkbah wrote: »

if you read the start of the thread I said she looked older and suggested a bone marrow test to confirm her age ….and I got attacked for it !!

Acting the victim much?
I would hardly describe responses to you as being an attack.

But if we want to use that terminology, then I'd still be content to "attack" you're idea of using bone marrow testing. The Gardai would need a court order allowing them to do such testing and I would highly doubt, particularly given the circumstances that a court would acquiesce to such an order.

I don't recall anyone "attacking" you for suggesting she might be older than 15, but rather your simplistic view on how to determine otherwise.

Corkbah

emmabrighton wrote: »

The girl/woman is clearly unwell. Whether she is a narcissist or bi-polar or whatever, no sane person would fly to an opposite hemisphere and concoct a story just for the craic.

Will be interested to see how this pans out.

she is either unwell or simply knows how to play the system - if she has previous for similar then its more than likely she knows how it will play out from the very beginning.

clever or crazy ??

K-9

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

I cant understand why people are blaming the guards.
It was HSE that resisted for weeks in the High Court all Garda attempts to release the girls photo.
It was the HSE, again in the High court, who insisted that she was an extremely vulnerable minor, who needed to be protected from having her photo released.
Perhaps if the Guards had been allowed to do their job this would have been sorted weeks ago.

That's all great with the benefit of hindsight, I suppose the Garda bashing seems to be over let's get the HSE instead.

seamus

Corkbah wrote: »

if you read the start of the thread I said she looked older and suggested a bone marrow test to confirm her age ….and I got attacked for it !!

Because it's preposterous and unnecessary. Also, in the case of a minor, the HSE cannot perform an invasive medical procedure which is not in the child's best interests. In the case of an adult, it can't be done without their agreement. So it wouldn't be possible to do anyway.

Does it matter that she was placed in the care of the HSE because they believed she was a minor? It's not that big a deal. She has no I.D., is not speaking, appears to be a victim of sexual assault and could easily be a minor. So why not place her in care until her identity is established?

Whatever way you play it, she was clearly in need of assistance and for someone else to make decisions regarding her welfare. A bone marrow test would do little except satisfy the curiosity of some armchair commentators. Even if it did establish she was a woman in her 20s, there would still be the question over who she was and whether she had been a victim of sex trafficking. So the bone marrow test would be largely pointless.

Uriel.

K-9 wrote: »

I suppose the Garda bashing seems to be over let's get the HSE instead.

Be careful, after the Gardai and the HSE.... you could be next :P

Sir Humphrey Appleby

K-9 wrote: »

That's all great with the benefit of hindsight, I suppose the Garda bashing seems to be over let's get the HSE instead.

Not "getting" anyone, just pointing out that the Gardaí were not responsible for a lot of what some posters were blaming them for.
Do you dispute that the HSE vociferously opposed in the High Court, all attempts by the Gardaí to publish the photo?

K-9

Sir Humphrey Appleby wrote: »

Not "getting" anyone, just pointing out that the Gardaí were not responsible for a lot of what some posters were blaming them for.
Do you dispute that the HSE vociferously opposed in the High Court, all attempts by the Gardaí to publish the photo?

The HSE has a responsibility to the girl/woman, and I'm sure had their reasons. I'm not an expert on why they did that, wouldn't want to work in it either, you'd get it from both sides. Those who say you don't do enough and those saying it's too harsh.

Deise Vu

Why are people looking for someone to blame here? A girl appears dazed and confused on our streets, she is picked up by a street patrol and taken to healthcare professionals where she is un-communicative but draws some extremely disturbing pictures indicating horrific abuse. The Guards try all the obvious avenues to identify her but deem it necessary to publish her photo. The healthcare professionals fight this in court because, if she has been abused, her photo will be in every newspaper in Europe which could have a further traumatic effect on her.

I am actually proud of how sensitively this has been treated by the authorities. For once, I think they have actually got it spot on.

AnonoBoy

Corkbah wrote: »

clever or crazy ??

Very possibly both.