It was no tea party... but there was no Heavy Gang
» Interrogator of Joanne Detective reveals face to Hayes insists no wrongdoing face confession only option
BY
A RETIRED detective involved in the Kerry Babies case has insisted there was no garda “Heavy Gang” in operation at the time.
Gerry O’carroll admitted it was “no tea party” being interrogated by the Murder Squad – but he denied the use of any heavy-handed methods.
The retired detective inspector was one of two officers to personally interview Joanne Hayes and spent five years of his 35-year career in the Murder Squad.
Ms Hayes received a State apology in 2018 – more than 40 years after being wrongly accused of the murder of a newborn who had been stabbed 28 times and had his neck broken.
Recalling the case that rocked the nation retired Detective Inspector O’carroll said: “Everything was dependent on face-to-face and interrogation. Everything.
“That is the key to the whole era... and the allegations and all that followed with it.
“We hadn’t got the tools that they have today, forensic know-how and expertise. DNA was in its infancy.
BURIED
“It is no tea party to be interrogated for 48 hours, no, not a tea party. Face to face confessions, that’s what it’s all about. There are no confessions now.”
The unsolved murder mystery of the Kerry Babies scandal has haunted the nation since an infant’s lifeless body washed ashore on White Strand in Cahirciveen in April 1984.
Gardai from Dublin, who were sent to investigate, honed in on Joanne Hayes after learning she’d been in hospital after a pregnancy but with no sign of a baby.
Joanne had given birth to a baby that had died which was buried on the family farm at Abbeydorney around 80km from Caherciveen.
When she sought medical treatment, gardai wrongly suspected that she was the mother, and the murderer, of five-day-old Baby John.
Graphic confessions, including how she killed the newborn with a kitchen knife and bashed his head in with a bath brush, were written up by gardai.
In January 2018 a cold case review, headed by Supt Flor Murphy, was launched and the Hayes family
You have to understand the times that were in it… I was on a hitlist EX-GARDA O’CARROLL IN RTE DOCUMENTARY »
received a State apology and settlement in December 2020.
Retired detective inspector O’carroll recalls details of the shocking case – and his time on the Murder Squad – on RTE’S Crimes & Confessions which airs tomorrow night.
He said: “The Murder Squad that I joined was a very, I have to say, exclusive and select unit that were picked out of all the countryside.
“The Murder Squad had four units, a DI two DSS and 10 detectives and out of that it might have two or three interrogators.
“You have to understand the times [that] were in it... I was on an IRA hitlist.. my life was threatened on three separate occasions.”
The RTE series links three cases – the unsolved murder of Una Lynskey, the Sallins train heist and the Kerry Babies scandal – to examine the role of gardai.
The final episode which airs on
Monday outlines how the Hayes family signed what they claimed were false confessions after hours of interrogation. Charges were dropped after forensic tests revealed Joanne Hayes could not have been the mother of the Cahirciveen baby.
All of the gardai involved in the case have always vehemently denied allegations of wrongdoing.
But the case made national and international headlines and led the then government to set up a State Tribunal to investigate the actions of the gardai involved.
However even though it was meant
to be impartial, the tribunal forced Joanne Hayes to relive the harrowing experience of childbirth in a field.
She collapsed and required sedation after she was harshly interrogated about how much she had bled before, during and after giving birth.
The Dail committee on women’s affairs is on record describing the questioning as “insensitive, harrowing, horrific and shameful”.
On his role in the Sallins train robbery probe Mr O’carroll said: “We did not fabricate anything... we did not. I did not see in the Bridewell [Garda station] that night anybody
being ill treated by any garda or any other officer, I did not.”
He added: “I deny the existence of a so-called Heavy Gang... we were good interrogators... Joanne Hayes and I got on like a house on fire. I was nice to that girl.”
But Tralee solicitor Pat Mann, who
has advocated on behalf of Joanne Hayes since 1984, recalls the ongoing impact of the case on her and her family in the RTE programme.
He said: “She’s had the burden of a wrong tribunal finding against her for 40 years and the ripple effect that that had on her going through life, has been enormous”
Recalling his first meeting with Joanne in 1984 he said: “I just noted to myself how small and frail she was, when she was so upset.
“The first thing she told me that they said they were charging her with the murder of her baby. And of course in my head straight away I said this can’t be right. The one question that has remained unanswered is, how five different people at the same time, in the same building, made five effectively dovetailing statements confessing to a crime that science said they couldn’t have committed.
“That question has never been properly answered.”
In September 2021 gardai exhumed the remains of Baby John in order to take an enhanced DNA sample gardai believe may crack one of Ireland’s most notorious cases.
Joanne had the burden of a wrong finding against her for 40 years SOLICITOR PAT MANN ON KERRY BABY CASE