Michael Clifford: Blunders and coincidences abound in Charleton tribunal revelations

If the business of the Charleton tribunal was proposed for a movie script, it would be rejected as beyond belief. Too many coincidences, too many mistakes. Too much that requires the suspension of belief, writes Michael Clifford.

Yesterday, tribunal chair Judge Peter Charleton aired one of the strange coincidences. The witness was Laura Brophy, the counsellor who in 2013 made “a catastrophic error” in mistakenly describing a relatively innocuous allegation against Sgt Maurice McCabe as one of a most serious sexual abuse.

This followed a counselling session with Ms D, the daughter of a colleague of Sgt McCabe, who was retelling an allegation she had made some seven years before.