IRELAND
Irish Independent
Conor Gallagher
PUBLISHED 24/02/2015
A detective has gone on trial accused of forging a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to the investigation of a priest accused of sexual abuse.
Detective Garda Catherine McGowan has pleaded not guilty to one count of forgery on January 15, 2009 at Bray Garda Station where she is based.
She also pleaded not guilty to two counts of using a false instrument at Bray and Harcourt Street Garda Stations between June 21 and 22, 2011.
The instrument is alleged to have been a letter from the office of the DPP dated January 14, 2009.
In his opening speech to the jury, prosecuting counsel Alex Owens SC said that Gda McGowan had forged the letter to “hoodwink” gardaí who were reviewing whether she had acted properly in investigating allegations of sexual abuse by a priest of a teenage girl.
The investigation of Gda McGowan’s handling of the case was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report, which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest in Gda McGowan’s case was one of the clerics mentioned in the report.
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