McDowell to seek Garda report into murdered baby inquiry

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is to seek a full report from the Garda into the handling of the case of baby Noleen Murphy who was discovered murdered in south Dublin 34 years ago.

The Minister said yesterday he found the case "profoundly disturbing" and that he would bring the matter further.

On Friday, an inquest jury unanimously found that the infant discovered in a laneway in Dún Laoghaire in 1973 was the child of Cynthia Owen. She claims the baby was conceived as a result of sexual abuse in the family home. The jury at Dublin Coroner's Court also found that the infant had died at the family home in Dalkey and that the cause of death was haemorrhage due to stab wounds.

Ms Owen has called on the Minister to "act promptly" and to investigate the handling by gardaí of the murder in 1973.

Mr McDowell said the first thing he intended to do was to "get a full report from An Garda Síochána about what they did and what they didn't do".

He added: "I am minded to bring the matter further because I think it's obviously of some importance. We now have a number of ways of inquiring into such matters and I am intending to put the spotlight on all of the allegations that have been made so that we can see whether there is reason for taking the matter further to a proper inquiry."

Mr McDowell said some of the allegations were "really profoundly disturbing".

"I don't want to engage in a futile inquiry, but if there is something I believe could come to light as a result of a proper inquiry, I'm very happy to do it."

Solicitor and former Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter, who has taken an interest in the case over the past decade, said yesterday there should be a full review of the Garda investigation in 1973 and of material later sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in the 1990s.

In an interview on This Week on RTÉ radio, he said the possibility of prosecutions, if not for the baby's death but for the litany of alleged sexual abuse, should be reconsidered. New questions about the case needed to be answered and old ones revisited.

There were "considerable question marks" over the 1973 Garda investigation, Mr Shatter said. He did not understand how the remains of the child had been placed in a communal grave or how the bag in which the body had been found was lost. He suggested that it may not be too late to have the body exhumed.

"In 2006 the Minister for Justice, at the request of the coroner who dealt with this matter, turned down a request that there be an exhumation of the baby's remains. It was turned down because the baby's remains were placed in a communal grave and there were concerns the remains would be contaminated.

"Now I believe that DNA fingerprinting has reached a level of sophistication where, if the Government and An Garda Síochána were prepared to meet the cost of this, there's a real possibility that the remains of this child be distinguishable from other remains. If the remains could be so distinguished, DNA fingerprinting might provide very cogent and important evidence, which I think would give rise to the possibility of a future criminal prosecution."

Ms Owen told the inquest she had given birth to the baby when she was 11. She said she had been repeatedly raped from a young age by a number of people.