SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

By Michael O’Farrell

Investigations Editor

AN HORRIFIC child abuse saga has exposed the vast difference between the approach taken by the UK child protection authorities and those in Ireland. The case of Saoirse, first exposed by the Irish Mail on Sunday last year, revealed how gardaí and child protection authorities here failed to investigate horrific child abuse allegations at a Midlands foster home for a decade.

The injustice, for which childcare agency Tusla has unreservedly apologised, involved a shocking series of failures by State agencies here including:

A Garda criminal case file that mysteriously vanished after the victim made a formal complaint of child abuse;

The repeated failure by a succession of HSE and Tusla officials to deal appropriately with child-abuse concerns raised by the victim;

The failure of the authorities here to act to ensure that other children were not also put in danger.

But another heretofore undisclosed failure involves the manner in which the Irish authorities never warned their UK counterparts of abuse concerns in their jurisdiction.

Such a warning would have allowed the UK authorities to establish whether other children in their jurisdiction had been abused or put in danger.

Before being placed in foster care in Ireland, Saoirse, whose real identity the Irish Mail on Sunday is protecting, had been living in the UK where she and her siblings were allegedly abused by her father.

This abuse is the reason Saoirse and her family were first placed into foster care – where tragically they went on to be further abused by third parties.

Saoirse’s sister first disclosed the abuse she and her siblings suffered in the UK in 1987 to the Irish authorities when she was 18. Then in 1998 Saoirse disclosed the abuse to gardaí and HSE medical staff to no avail.

Later again, in 2009, Saoirse made a formal criminal complaint to gardaí.

But gardaí shelved the case without ever investigating – and without informing the UK authorities – although they continued to indicate to Saoirse that an investigation was still in train.

Following an investigation by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, Saoirse received a written Garda apology in February 2019.

But this only apologised for a ‘systems failure’ that resulted in her case being mislaid. It did not address the manner in which Saoirse was led to believe for years that her case was being investigated – when it had been shelved. And it did not address continuing concerns about how Saoirse’s medical files – which an investigating garda claims to have destroyed – were subsequently found.

The Garda failure to investigate Saoirse’s allegations in 2009 meant she had to make a fresh statement in 2018. An investigation since has recently concluded but due to the passage of time and a lack of willing witnesses, the DPP has decided not to prosecute.

In preparing her 2018 statement for gardaí, Saoirse contacted school authorities in Cheshire seeking details to include in her statement.

The ensuing reaction of the UK authorities was far different to what Saoirse faced here. Immediately upon hearing of alleged abuse in their jurisdiction, the school authorities in Cheshire referred Saoirse to the Truth Project – one arm of the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

In April last year Saoirse detailed her experiences to a team from the Truth Project, who immediately referred her case to the Cheshire constabulary for investigation.

Without delay, the police in Cheshire assigned a detective who sought Saoirse’s file from gardaí in Ireland via Interpol and requested her medical records.

The detective also sought advice from the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service about the possibility of extraditing her father – who is now living back in Ireland – to face prosecution in the UK.

Cheshire police also tracked down and found a corroborating witness in the UK who was willing to testify and arranged to formally interview Saoirse and her siblings.

In a few short months the UK authorities put more effort into the case than gardaí here had done in decades. But 10 months on, the authorities here have failed to give Saoirse’s file to UK police.

‘The Garda have still not supplied their case files despite our attempts,’ a Cheshire detective wrote to Saoirse on January 12 this year. In response, Saoirse asked Cheshire police to follow up with the appropriate authorities in Ireland to ensure gardaí will in future co-operate with such requests.

‘I would like to request your policing service to ask the Irish Interpol service to ensure that their reporting of crimes internationally is robust,’ she wrote on January 14.

‘The only justice I feel I will get now is exposing the serious failures of how, time and time again, children were failed in Ireland.’ Saoirse added that abuse survivors were not only being failed ‘in the first instance’ but were then being ‘repeatedly failed by systems designed to protect them’.

‘This is something that will stay with me forever,’ she wrote.

COMPENSATION FIGHT GOES ON AFTER REPEATED FAILURES

A TUSLA review of Saoirse’s case, finalised six months ago, outlined myriad failures by child protection authorities here. It details how Saoirse’s case was repeatedly mishandled.

The review states: ‘The reviewers could not determine what decisions and actions were taken by the social work department as there is no evidence of follow-up [measures] recorded on the case files provided.’ It adds that after Saoirse’s foster mother admitted physical abuse she continued to be involved with children.

It remains unexplained how she was allowed to do this since the role required Garda vetting.

A complaint into the loss of Saoirse’s criminal case file and associated medical records remains unresolved.

Saoirse lodged a compensation claim with Tusla in December, which has been forwarded to the State Claims Agency.