A High Court judge has directed that a letter and other papers which appeared to indicate that perjury may have been committed in a long-running Army deafness case be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Mr Justice Johnson, yesterday said it appeared to him that what the State was alleging on the part of the man making a claim for damages for deafness amounted to fraud.
Mr Maurice Healy (67), formerly of Roches Buildings, Blackpool, Cork, and now of Ardcross, Crosshaven, Cork, is claiming damages from the Minister for Defence in respect of impaired hearing which he says he suffered as a resulted of his alleged period in the Army from 1951 to 1955.
Last February, the hearing was adjourned to allow the State to make inquiries into the identification of the plaintiff after doubts were expressed by counsel for the Minister. When the case resumed a week later, Mr Healy insisted he had been a member of the Army but could not remember the name of his commanding officer or his Army number.
The court was told that the only record of a Maurice Healy joining the Defence Forces in 1951 related to a man who was 5 ft 8 in, while the plaintiff had insisted he was 6 ft in 1951 and was now 6 ft 3 in.
The address given for the man who joined the Army was The Point, Crosshaven, Co Cork, where the plaintiff said he lived when a child in the mid-30s but not when he joined in 1951. Mr Healy said he had a brother, Paul, who was smaller and 12 months younger. They had lost contact many years ago and he did not know where he was now.
Mr Brendan Grehan, for the plaintiff, when applying yesterday for an adjournment, was asked by the judge: "Which Maurice Healy are you for?" Mr Grehan said his solicitors had examined papers furnished by the State since the last adjournment and these appeared to show that only one Maurice Healy joined the Army at the relevant time. This had been passed on to his client.
Because Mr Healy was currently an inpatient in South Infirmary Hospital, Cork, he asked for an adjournment. Mr Gerard Clarke SC, for the State, said he was furnished with a handwritten letter purporting to be from a friend of the plaintiff, a Mr William Murphy, indicating that Mr Healy was in hospital and unable to attend court. When inquiries were made, however, it was found that Mr Healy had presented himself to the hospital in Cork this week and booked himself in without being referred by a doctor.
It was also established that Mr Healy had given evidence in a High Court action in Cork last week indicating that he had been obliged to give up his taxi-driving job because of a back injury. Yet the court would recall Mr Healy telling it in this case that he was compelled to cease his taxi work because of his alleged deafness.
Granting an indefinite adjournment, Mr Justice Johnson said this was a case which should be referred to the DPP. It appeared that what the State was alleging amounted to fraud. He ordered that the file be sent to the DPP.