The Kerry Babies Case

There's actually nothing scandalous about this questioning. That's what happens in court. If you are giving damning evidence against somebody then that person's legal representatives have the right, and indeed duty, to cross-examine you thoroughly including bringing your motives and/or character into question. Extraordinary privilege is granted to interrogators in a court room for that very reason. It was inevitable that Joanne Hayes be subjected to such a thorough grilling. Brutal it certainly is, but that's the way the courts worked then and the way they work now.

If that tribunal were taking place today, a young woman in the same position would be subjected to a cross examination every bit as hostile and it wouldn't matter a damn if her tormentor was a male or female barrister. Remember the storm of protest back in 2018 when a barrister defending an alleged rapist told the jury that the fact that the 17-year old complainant was wearing thong underwear should be taken into consideration? (The barrister--actually a Senior Counsel--was called Elizabeth)

What might be different today, compared to 1985, is the moral subject matter that would be used to trash a witness's credibility. A barrister expressing fake horror at a MARRIED woman going to the pub for a drink with a male colleague before going home (which happened during the Kerry Babies Tribunal and was widely ridiculed even then) wouldn't happen now. But if you are a shy, overawed, private young woman, completely unfamiliar with court practices and the hostility of lawyers you are going to be treated as much like a dog's chew toy as was Ms Hayes 40 years ago.

They wouldn't sneer at you for having sex, but by God they would scour your social media history for evidence of crimes considered heinous by the mores of today.

Have you ever posted ANYTHING that might attract accusations of racism? Ever??

Have you ever "Liked" a post or a tweet by somebody of questionable reputation, like an anti-immigrant activist? (This is a particularly frowned upon activity. Ask Kellie Harrington. )

Have you ever said "Wait a minute...." when asked to state that a well known man is now a woman and should be not only spoken of as such but actually thought of as such? This will get you into BIG trouble. Ask JK Rowling

Did you ever appear as a Wise Man in a school nativity play and apply some fake tan to your face to "get into character"? I hope you didn't apply too much and if you did I hope there are no incriminating photographs. If there are, God help you.

This is not to condone racism, xenophobia or transphobia. Just to point out that if you are a witness in a court case involving serious crimes you have got to be SQUEAKY clean on all of the above. A hint of suspicion that you might have dodgy views on any of those topics and you will be torn apart.

The real scandal of the Kerry Babies, and it WAS a scandal, is that the Gardai extracted false statements from an innocent family and when the forensic evidence and basic common sense proved that these were untrue, they were unable and/or unwilling to withdraw them and make amends. That was a disgrace. And it led to the brutal treatment of the Hayes family in the witness box. THAT was horrible, unfair and rightly made a lot of people very angry.

But it wasn't the scandal; just a tragedy.

Madd Finn, you do realise a Tribunal is not a court. The fact that we generally have High Court judges chairing them confuses this. Joanne Hayes was never the defendant. Chairman should have reined in the questioning.

Eventually he’s caught up with the rest of the worlds way of thinking- a bitter man

https://m.sundayworld.com/crime/irish-crime/kerry-babies-retired-garda-accepts-joanne-hayes-was-not-mum-of-baby-john/a1629048572.html

As a retired detective, how has he been given the names of the couple, that have not been identified publicly?

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.

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

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.

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

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"