Inquiry call after DPP lost file in sex case

THERE have been growing calls for an inquiry into the overturning of a Galway man’s wrongful conviction for sexual assault after the Department of Public Prosecution said it had lost a file on the case.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern is studying a Garda file on the case of Michael Feichin Hannon after it was passed on to him by Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy.

Last week Mr Hannon’s initial conviction for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl was declared a miscarriage of justice.

The girl who made the complaint admitted she had made a false allegation. But it emerged over the weekend that a file which would have cleared Mr Hannon’s name much earlier was mislaid by the DPP.

The loss of the file, which detailed how in December 2006 the complainant Una Hardester admitted to having made up the allegations, was never conveyed to Mr Hannon’s legal team at the time.

Instead, his legal team did not receive a new file containing the information until March last year, while Mr Hannon only knew of the development by chance.

Mr Ahern received the Garda report on Friday, but yesterday there were fresh calls for a public apology to be made to Mr Hannon and an inquiry into how the case was treated by the DPP.

Tom O’Malley, senior lecturer in law at NUI Galway, said how Mr Hannon had been left totally unaware for a full year that the complaint against him had been withdrawn warranted an external or internal inquiry.

That point was echoed by Labour Galway West TD Michael D Higgins, who said that the “defective process” needed to be examined and that the court should have been able to ask the DPP why there had been such a delay.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Mr Higgins said.

“What really demands explanation is first of all the delay between the point at which the confession is made and its communication to the legal representatives of Mr Hannon, and then after that the delay in making the full facts available.”

He said it was “quite outrageous” that a file going missing led to a further delay, not that the DPP had not admitted that this had been the case.

Mr Higgins said there should be a quick inquiry into the matter and a quick apology made to Mr Hannon by the State and the Department of Justice.

Earlier, Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said there was “public disquiet” about aspects of how Mr Hannon’s case had been dealt with. Mr Ahern may make a statement on the issue later this week.

Mr Hannon had received a four-year suspended sentence from Galway Circuit Court in 1999 following the allegations, since proved to be false, by Ms Hardester.

The conviction was overturned in February before last week’s declaration of a miscarriage of justice.