Systemic failure and misjudgment led to grave error

Misjudgments by individuals combined with systemic failures led to RTÉ’s grave error to wrongly accuse a priest of fathering the child of a teenage girl he was accused of raping.

A damning report on the background to the controversial Prime Time Investigates documentary Mission to Prey broadcast on May 23, found that note-taking at all stages of the production were “either non-existent or grossly inadequate”.

It concluded the programme makers also developed a “group-think” mentality which wrongly convinced them that the “facts” verified their assumption of the guilt of Fr Kevin Reynolds.