NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Mirror
BY LESLEY-ANNE MCKEOWN
The documents, which were only released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry this morning, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974
Gardai knew about the activities of a notorious paedophile priest in the early 1970s, an inquiry has heard.
Confidential documents from a psychiatric hospital in Dublin have revealed Fr Brendan Smyth, who went on to abuse hundreds of children over four decades, had asked to be admitted after coming to the attention of Gardai in 1973.
Joseph Aiken, counsel for the inquiry said: “For some reason Brendan Smyth has asked the doctor looking after him to write a letter to Finglas Garda station to say that he is going to be taken in for some inpatient treatment.”
Smyth had been conducting a retreat in Finglas in July 1973.
The documents, which were only released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry this morning, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974.
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