Why has McDowell remained so strangely silent on the Curtin affair?

HAVING dealt with the Brian Curtin matter last week, I am loath to revisit it again so soon.

But the whole thing has such sinister implications that answers are needed and people should not be put off by the orgy of invective that was unleashed against the retired judge last weekend.

Nobody seemed to ask why “exclusive access to the details” of the material illegally seized in the raid at Curtin’s home was leaked last week to the Irish Independent. During October we had a series of ministers exercising their indignation over the leak about Bertie Ahern receiving money, but they were all strangely silent about last weekend’s leak.

Michael McDowell kicked up a fuss over innocuous information leaked to The Star some years ago. He went so far as to suggest that gardaí who leak information to the press should be jailed.

Then he selectively released information last year about Frank Connolly allegedly travelling on a false passport. As Justice Minister, he had the authority to release material from his department, but he was dumping on the presumption of innocence.

Technically, he engaged in selective disclosure to just one journalist, Sam Smyth. Who leaked the material about Brian Curtin to the same Sam Smyth? Those who leak frequently have ulterior motives, so it is more important to ask why was it leaked? The Irish Independent alleged Curtin downloaded what it described as vile, sickening, depraved, and unimaginably cruel images of young boys and girls. Did people at the Independent see the material, or were they relying on the creative imagination of those responsible for the courtroom farce last April?

The Circuit Court ruled that the material had been seized illegally, yet our Minister for Justice, who was ultimately responsible for its custody, was strangely silent about the leak.

Last week I suggested here that attacks on Curtin were being used as a diversion — a smokescreen to obscure important unanswered questions.

“The sequence of events that led to the judge’s resignation ranks with the most grotesque and bizarre in the history of the State”, the Irish Independent proclaimed in its editorial the same day, but instead of focusing on those events, it got lost in the fog it was helping to generate. Some might suggest an inquiry, but the judiciary and politicians are so implicated that it would have to be a unique investigation. There are too many unanswered questions:

1. Why was Curtin appointed when his legal colleagues were asking serious questions about his suitability, and gardaí had already been informed months earlier that his credit card number was used to purchase porn from a website that had been closed down for distributing child pornography?

2. Why did the gardaí foul up in executing the search warrant, and if they were responsible, why was the man in charge promoted so soon afterwards?

3. Why did the State bring the case against Curtin when it knew, or ought to have known, that it would be thrown out?

4. Why was the material leaked last weekend and why has the Minister for Justice been so strangely silent about the leaking? Brian Curtin was involved in a relationship with a teenage girl before his appointment. There is nothing necessarily wrong with a man in his 40s being friends with a teenage girl, but it was illegal and wrong to buy her alcoholic drink in a pub while she was under age. One night Curtin’s lady friend announced it was her 18th birthday, but she had been drinking there a number of times previously.

That night the proprietor was figuratively spitting fire that Curtin had previously brought an underage person into the bar to drink alcohol. The young lady was certainly able to pass as older. Indeed, the following year she had her 18th birthday again. It may not be that uncommon for young women to have multiple 18th birthdays, but it seems that her previous one was actually her 17th.

NOBODY in the bar, other than Curtin, would have known her age, as she was from a different generation, but gradually word began to spread that she was only in secondary school. He actually flaunted the relationship by frequently bringing her to school. This was the talk of the school, the legal profession and the chattering classes.

When he was appointed to the Circuit Court, there were local expressions of astonishment. He was entitled to a presumption of innocence, but as a prospective judge he needed to be above suspicion.

John O’Donoghue, then Minister for Justice, is a Kerryman as well as a member of the legal profession. Did any of his local legal friends not tell him?

“Brian Curtin was recommended”, the Taoiseach blandly told the Dáil. He “was one of a list of persons approved for appointment to a vacancy in the Circuit Court by the judicial appointments advisory committee”.

That committee was comprised of the then Attorney General, Michael McDowell; the Chief Justice, the presidents of the High Court, Circuit Court, District Court, two representatives of the legal profession and up to three representatives appointed by John O’Donoghue. Did those people ask any questions at all of legal friends who knew Curtin? And who recommended him anyway? Curtin had run for Tralee Urban Council as a candidate for the Progressive Democrats, and Michael McDowell, now leader of the party, was a member of the committee that approved his suitability. Did McDowell have any other input in the appointment?

“At no time”, the Taoiseach told the Dáil, did Ministers O’Donoghue or McDowell “indicate that they had any knowledge or information to show that Brian Curtin was an unsuitable person”.

But that is very different from saying that neither of them had been warned. Nobody bothered to ask the gardaí if they had anything on Curtin. They were informed in August 2001 — three months before his appointment to the Circuit Court — that his credit card number had been used to purchase porn from a website that had been closed down for selling child pornography two years earlier.

On the matter of the defective search warrant, gardaí are drilled on the importance of ensuring a warrant is in order, and especially that it is not out of date. But the search warrant served on Curtin was fundamentally flawed as it had expired more than 12 hours earlier.

Some people suspect this was a deliberate mistake to ensure that Curtin would get off. I don’t believe in that kind of conspiracy, but confidence in our system requires that there be no room for such suspicions.

In the circumstances in which the State must have known that it could not produce the seized evidence, Judge Carroll Moran ruled “it was wrong for the prosecution to bring this case to trial”.

That was a damning judgement. The trial was a judicial farce and the start of the colossal smokescreen. Our Minister for Justice has shown no interest in enquiring into how this came about. Why?