THE HIGH Court has been asked to quash an inquest jury’s verdict on the death of a newborn girl whose body was found in a south Dublin laneway some 37 years ago.
Cynthia Owen had claimed she was the mother of the baby and alleged it was stabbed to death in the family home in Dalkey in April 1973, before being found days later in a Dún Laoghaire laneway wrapped in newspapers and in a plastic bag.
Ms Owen’s sister, Catherine Stevenson, has brought legal proceedings seeking to overturn a unanimous jury finding, following an inquest held by Dublin County Coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty in 2007, that Ms Owen was the mother of the child.
Ms Stevenson is also challenging the coroner’s decision not to give the inquest jury allegedly conflicting statements by Ms Owen which, it is alleged, raised issues about Ms Owen’s credibility.
The jury was told Ms Owen alleged she was raped repeatedly from the age of seven or eight into her teenage years by four different people.
Her family said the claims by Ms Owen of alleged murder and disposal by a family member of the baby were completely untrue and there was, in fact, no baby.
They had previously urged the coroner not to reopen the inquest claiming it would be used by Ms Owen to make allegations, ultimately leading to “a murder trial under the guise of an inquest”.
The inquest did proceed and Ms Stevenson, two other sisters, and their late father Peter Murphy, later secured High Court permission to bring proceedings seeking to quash the finding by the jury that Ms Owen was the child’s mother.
The proceedings opened yesterday before Mr Justice John Hedigan who was told they are now being brought by Ms Stevenson with the support of her sister Esther Roberts who is living in England.
In her action, Ms Stevenson says the coroner should not have kept several conflicting statements by Ms Owen from the inquest jury.
Ms Owen initially claimed she had been sexually abused as a child, became pregnant and had a termination, Ms Stevenson said in an affidavit. In later statements, Ms Owen had said she had given birth to a baby as a result of sexual abuse and that child had been murdered by a family member and disposed of by leaving it in a plastic bag in a laneway. Ms Owen had also alleged she gave birth to a stillborn baby in about 1976 when she was about 14 which was buried in the back garden of the family home, Ms Stevenson said. However, gardaí had excavated that garden and no baby was found.
From about 2002, Ms Owen also began to make allegations about a paedophile ring and being subjected to satanic abuse, Ms Stevenson said. It was Ms Stevenson’s case that a son, born to one of their brothers in April 1973, was the “first and only grandson and nephew born at this time”.
Ms Owen had not given birth to a child in the family home in 1973 as alleged and did not have a stillborn child at 14 but had made “increasingly wild” allegations of sexual abuse. She was “constantly reviewing her list of alleged abusers and adding to it”.
Dr Geraghty, it is claimed, should not have proceeded with the inquest in the absence of a body after he was refused permission by the Minister for Justice to have the body of the baby girl exhumed from the Little Angels plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Opening the case yesterday, Sunniva McDonagh SC, for Ms Stevenson, said it was her client’s position, and that of other family members, that there was no baby. “It is a situation where there could not be a starker conflict of fact,” Ms McDonagh said.
The coroner had not justified why he had carried out the inquest some 34 years after the infant was found, she added.
The hearing continues.