Kerry babies case re-examined in new episode of RTÉ documentary series
Joanne Hayes with members of her family arriving for the hearing at the Kerry Babies Tribunal in 1985. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie
The Kerry Babies Case will be re-examined as part of an RTÉ documentary this Monday.
The third and final episode of will look at the infamous case which saw single mother Joanne Hayes wrongly accused of the heinous crime of killing her own baby. The then 25-year-old was accused after a newborn baby was found after washing up on White Strand near Cahirciveen, Co Kerry in April 1984.
Hayes had recently given birth to a baby boy who later died, but he was not the baby discovered on the beach.
However, after hours of interrogation by detectives at Tralee Garda station, Joanne and four other members of the Hayes family signed what they later claimed were false statements confessing to a role in the death of Baby John.
Garda forensics later revealed Joanne Hayes could not have been the mother of the baby and all charges were dropped.
The Hayes family later made a number of allegations against gardaí including intimidation and inappropriate conduct but these allegations were later withdrawn.
In December 2020, the findings of the Kerry Babies Tribunal were overturned leading to a State apology and compensation to the Hayes family.
Over the course of the series, reporter Mick Peelo has been trying to establish whether there is any foundation to allegations of a Garda Heavy Gang operating in the 1970s and '80s in Ireland. Earlier episodes examined two of the most notorious miscarriages of justice cases from the 70s including the murder of teenager Una Lynskey in 1971 and the Sallins train robbery involving Nicky Kelly in 1976.
This final episode includes interviews with the Hayes family's solicitor Pat Mann, a relative who posted bail for Joanne Hayes, and Detective Inspector Gerry O’Carroll, one of two detectives to personally interrogate Joanne Hayes.
Tralee solicitor Pat Mann says many questions remain unanswered in the case of Baby John.
“The one question that has, at all times, remained unsatisfactorily unanswered is, how five people different people at the same time in the same building made five effectively dovetailing statements confessing to a crime that science said they couldn’t have committed? That question has never been properly answered.”
Elsewhere in the programme, retired Detective Inspector Gerry O’Carroll denies any suggestions of a Garda Heavy Gang.
“We were good interrogators,” he says.
In the 70s and 80s, “everything was dependent on face-to-face and interrogation," O’Carroll says, and that is the "key" to "the allegations and all that followed.
“We hadn’t got the tools that they have today, forensic know-how and expertise. DNA was in its infancy.
“Face to face confession that’s what it’s all about. There are no confessions now.”
- Crimes & Confessions: The Kerry Babies airs Monday at 9.35pm on RTÉ One
