Michael Clifford: Diarmuid Higgins - Living under the shadow of allegation for 22 years

A garda working on Scouting Ireland sex claims told Diarmuid Higgins he had been accused. He was never in the scouts, says Mick Clifford.

On April 4 last, Diarmuid Higgins got a call on his partner’s mobile phone.

Mr Higgins has his own business in the construction industry and was on-site in Cork City.

The caller identified herself as a garda. She asked him to confirm his date of birth, which she read out, and that he had been educated at a well-known secondary school in Cork City.

He confirmed the details and asked what the call was about.

She told him she was involved in the investigation into complaints of sexual abuse in Scouting Ireland and that a complaint had been made against him.

Following a number of controversies about the handling of abuse allegations in Scouting Ireland, in 2018, the gardaí had initiated an extensive investigation into all allegations.

The allegation against Mr Higgins dated from 1978 when, he was told, he and the complainant were both involved with the Castle St branch of the scouts in the city centre.

The alleged incident occurred at a scouting camp in Kilcully, north of the city.

The garda asked Mr Higgins to attend at a city station to make a statement.

Diarmuid Higgins is 56. He has never been in the scouts. He had never heard of the Castle St branch.

He passed this information onto the garda and claims that she replied: “If you’ve never been in the scouts, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

He asked where she got his name and his partner’s private number. The garda said she couldn’t discuss that.

Mr Higgins contacted his solicitor, who promptly wrote to the garda.

She wrote that it was her client’s position “to co-operate to assist the gardaí in any matter, provided, of course, he is in a position to do so and provided the gardaí are in a position to vouch that contact has been made with the correct person and due and proper procedure has been followed”.

The solicitor, Anne Tait, went on: “We would query, indeed, as to how and/or why the gardaí have a phone number for Diarmuid Higgins, given that the number you accessed him on is the number of an entirely different party, who at no time consented to the gardaí having that number.”

The letter also pointed out that Diarmuid Higgins “has never been a scout during his lifetime, he has never been a scout master, he has never had anything to do with the scouts, and he has never been a member of any scout patrol and/or a member of the scouts on Castle St, nor has he ever been away to camp with any patrol, or otherwise, at any time, ever”.

There were no further correspondences or calls from An Garda Síochána. Mr Higgins decided to do his own investigation.

He discovered there had never been a Castle St branch of the scouts in Cork City.

“I went to the Walter McGrath Scouting Museum in Cork and looked into it,” he says.

“I also went and spoke to traders in the area around Castle St. What I discovered was that there had been a troop in what is now Rory Gallagher Plaza.

"But that moved out to Togher in 1973, five years before this incident was supposed to have occurred.

"That troop could not have been mistaken for something in Castle St.

“If somebody is making a genuine compliant, it should be looked into, but it has nothing to do with me.

"That person is certainly not being well-served if the gardaí are going looking at somebody who was never in the scouts and not even checking if there was a scout troop where there was alleged to be one.”

He made a number of attempts to contact the garda who had phoned him with this information.

He says he was left waiting outside the station and then told that the detective he wanted was off that day.

There was no further contact from the gardaí.

Then, in September, his solicitor got another call. The detective said the file had come back from the DPP, which had recommended no charge be pursued.

“I was in a file handed to the DPP,” Mr Higgins says. “I was not formally even asked about the allegation.

"There was no attempt to interview me after that initial phone call out of the blue.

"I was never in the scouts, yet a file was prepared in which I was an alleged suspect in some kind of abuse.

"Presumably, I am now on the Pulse system, as an alleged abuser.”

The episode is being investigated by Gsoc, after Mr Higgins made a complaint.

He has also made a complaint to An Garda Síochána that he has been the subject of a malicious allegation of sexual abuse.

However, it remains unclear whether or not his name was specifically given to the gardaí by an alleged victim or whether he was drawn into the affair because of events 22 years ago, which have haunted him since.

In 1997, Mr Higgins was living with his mother.

A relative claimed that Mr Higgins had interfered with the relative’s three-year-old daughter.

The allegation was that the child had related that Mr Higgins had placed his hand inside the child’s pyjamas.

Relations between Mr Higgins and the child’s immediate family had been very strained in the months and years prior to the allegation.

He was devastated. His mother was also devastated and provided a statement to the gardaí refuting what was alleged, on the basis that her son could not have had access to the child, who had periodically been in her care.

Mr Higgins attended at his GP in late July, weeks after being told of the allegation.

The GP, Dr Caroline Murphy, was extremely concerned for his welfare, including his mental health.

She contacted the sexual assault unit that was dealing with the matter.

In a report subsequently, Dr Murphy noted the following about the call: “The social worker gave me information regarding the allegations which were being made against my patient (by the child’s parents), whom she described as a loving and devoted couple.

"She then followed with statements regarding my patient, which she suggested proved him to be the culprit: eg he was a loner, a heavy drinker, had a history of previous abuse, had no friends, lived with his mother, etc.”

She concluded that he should make a man of himself and admit he had done it.

“I told her that I felt her statements were inaccurate regarding my patient. I asked for information regarding the procedure involved in a case of this nature and concluded the conversation.

“When I came off the phone and analysed what had been said, I was concerned regarding two matters: That information was given freely over the phone to me, with no confirmation of my identity; that the social worker was so biased against my patient, which I found alarming.”

The description of Diarmuid Higgins as a “loner and heavy drinker” in 1997 is at complete variance with his character, as described by a number of sources who knew him at the time.

He had not met the social worker whom his GP alleges made these comments.

He would not even learn of her identity for nearly another twenty years.

There was no record on any file about aspects of Mr Higgins’s character.

There was no record of any allegation against him, apart from an alleged statement from a three-year-old child, whose parents were not on good terms with Mr Higgins.

The doctor’s version referenced the social worker’s description of the child’s parents as “a loving and devoted couple”.

The couple, in fact, was involved in work that would bring them into contact with the health board at the time, which might explain why a social worker would make such a comment.

This phone call became a major issue for Diarmuid Higgins.

His solicitor wrote to the sexual assault unit, complaining about it, two months later, saying that members of staff in the unit were voicing allegations against Mr Higgins to third parties.

“The allegations are extremely serious, and, in effect, consist of the allegation that my client has been engaged in sexual molestation (of the child) for some period of time.”

The response from the unit’s manager stated that the role of the unit is “the assessment of children following allegations or concerns of sexual abuse. We do not make allegations.”

In a response directly to Mr Higgins, after he wrote personally to complain, the manager of the unit stated that there was no record on the file of the conversation between the staff member and Dr Murphy.

“There is no record in the file of any information on which these comments could be based, other than that you reside with your mother,” the manager wrote.

“I have spoken to the member of staff and she recollects the telephone conversation.

"Her memory is that Dr Murphy telephoned because of her concerns for you.

"She advised her that an assessment was taking place, but is sure she did not give inappropriate information.”

There is a clear conflict in the two accounts of the telephone conversation.

Dr Murphy says the social worker made the highly prejudicial comments with no factual basis for doing so. The social worker says she never said anything of the sort.

Diarmuid Higgins is of the belief that somebody, somewhere, was highly prejudiced against him.

On October 4, 1997, he was arrested by gardaí in connection with the child’s allegation.

An issue arises as to whether it was necessary to arrest him, rather than merely arrange for an interview.

He claims he was ill-treated over the 12 hours he spent in custody.

This started with being called a “kiddie fiddler”, he alleges, and continued with verbal abuse and shouting.

All of this, he says, was directed at attempting to force from him a confession.

He also says the specifics of the abuse allegation were never put to him. A file was sent to the DPP, who recommended no prosecution.

Mr Higgins made a complaint to the old Garda Complaints Board. As was customary at the time, that went nowhere.

He complained to the health board over his GP’s version of the phone call she had with the social worker. That went nowhere.

It was close to the year 2000 before he lodged his complaint against the gardaí.

Less than six months later, he found himself the focus of another Garda inquiry.

A garda phoned to ask him to come into a city station to help out with something.

When he arrived, he was told that a blood sample was required from him, in relation to the investigation of a high-profile rape in the city.

According to news reports at the time, the main suspect was a teenager. Mr Higgins was 38.

“The officer told me someone phoned in to say I was seen in the area at the time,” he recorded in a statement.

“No questions as to where I was or what I was doing at the time of the brutal crime.

"I told the guard I did not believe anyone phoned up: I was being systematically called up.

"He threatened me with arrest if I did not give a sample. I agreed under protest.”

A newspaper report at the time related that a number of blood samples had been taken from people of interest.

Mr Higgins complained to the relevant superintendent, through his solicitor.

“We did receive a reply, saying that the investigating officer was retired and it would take a few weeks to investigate the matter; he (the superintendent) would be back to us. We are still waiting,” Mr Higgins said in his statement.

He attempted to get on with his life, but felt he was living under a dark cloud.

Then, in 2017, the child with whom he had allegedly interfered made a fresh complaint to the gardaí as an adult. She was now a woman of 23.

The complaint was the same as the original one, in general terms.

Diarmuid Higgins provided a statement in which he emphatically denied the allegation, and referenced the telephone call between his GP and the social worker from 20 years previously.

The comments allegedly made by the social worker, were, he believes, crucial to what happened thereafter.

“This premature, incorrect appraisal of me unfairly dictated the manner in which the allegation was investigated and, indeed, dictated the manner in which this child may have been approached in therapy or otherwise by her (the social worker).”

Nothing came of the reopening of the allegation, but it piled further stress on Mr Higgins.

Then, in April of this year, the allegation in relation to the scouts.

His belief is that his name was, so to speak, thrown into the mix when an allegation surfaced.

This he bases on his experience since the first allegation was made against him.

The scouting allegation awoke in Mr Higgins a fresh need to resolve that which he believes has had a horrible impact on his life.

He contacted Tusla, the child and family agency.

This time, his request for an inquiry into what he considered the crucial phone call with his GP was met positively.

Tusla does not comment on ongoing investigation, but the Irish Examiner has established that inquires are being made, albeit twenty two years after the incident.

When contacted, Dr Caroline Murphy said she did not wish to comment on the case, at this point, because she understands an investigation is being conducted by Tusla.

A spokesperson for Gsoc said it does not comment on any investigations, but the Irish Examiner has also established that an investigation into the handling of the scouting allegation is ongoing.