‘McCabe is an exemplary character’
PENALTY points whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe is a ‘genuine person who at all times has had the interests of the people of Ireland uppermost in his mind,’ the Disclosures Tribunal found.
Judge Peter Charleton said Sgt McCabe was a person of ‘exemplary character’ and ‘admirable fortitude’ who had been the victim of a false allegation of rape and – unfairly – viewed as a trouble maker and pariah by a substantial minority of the Garda force.
He noted that Sgt McCabe had said the false allegation had ruined his life, and that he now found it difficult to trust other people.
The judge noted that Sgt McCabe, a married father of five, has been a member of An Garda Síochána since August 1985, stationed in Bailieboro in Co. Cavan during the time relevant to his report.
‘His service has been one of quiet application. He is a fine police officer.
‘Superintendent Noel Cunningham, for example, spoke of him as being a first-class sergeant, a person on whom he could depend to get work done,’ the judge said.
In relation to the series of blunders that led to the arrival of a ‘deeply shocking’ letter containing the false allegation at Sgt McCabe’s home, Judge Charleton said Tusla, the Child and Family agency, had failed ‘to face up to and admit its considerable failings and stupidities’.
He said the tribunal was asked to believe that in April 2014, ‘by sheer coincidence’, social services decided to action the false rape allegation for Garda attention.
‘While that is astonishing enough, even more so is the fact that it was never corrected up to the start of 2017; that is three years later,’ he said.
He said social services never wrote to the McCabe family to explain exactly how the error was made.
‘That situation continued all the way up to the start of this tribunal... Had an admission as to what had happened been made by Tusla, this tribunal might not have been necessary,’ he added.