McAreavey verdict - Justice was done but not satisfied

Many families meet great loss through accident,violence or an unexpected illness. Some can, when this terrible moment arrives, circle the wagons and take refuge in the privacy most families are lucky enough to enjoy.

Those who have been in this position can imagine how much more difficult the shattering experience would be had they to endure it in the glare of unrelenting public curiosity.

Yet that has been the case for Michaela McAreavey’s family from the moment she was murdered in Mauritius in January 2011 until yesterday when the two hotel workers accused of killing her were found not guilty.

The acquittal of Avinash Treebhoowon and Sandip Mooneea will not bring closure to the Harte and McAreavey families’ ordeal but rather deepen the mystery and sharpen the inevitable curiosity surrounding the affair. They may however take comfort in the verdict because any other ruling would have been a cruel miscarriage of justice. The families will not welcome the fact that until a resolution is reached interest in their tragedy will continue. They will take little comfort in the fact that they will be joined in the spotlight’s glare by the Mauritian police who face very serious questions over their mishandling of the case.

Immediately after Michaela’s body was discovered her husband John McAreavey was arrested, handcuffed and held in isolation for five hours. Remember, this man had just lost his new wife in a savage, casual crime. He was alone and thousands of miles from home.

Allegations of police brutality against one of the accused recurred through the eight weeks of the trial. Treebhoowon made his first official complaint of ill-treatment just two days after the murder. Declared innocent yesterday he asserted that a confession he signed was false and extracted through violence.

Very serious questions remain around evidence gathering, fingerprinting, DNA tests, the thoroughness of questioning of hotel guests and staff. The police face questions too about delays in accessing hotel camera records and why Sandip Mooneea was even charged when a phone call put him elsewhere at the time of the crime.

The fiasco surrounding black and white crime-scene photographs — which were deemed part of a “catastrophic failure” — epitomised the police performance.

As the trial progressed there were moments of dark farce, especially when the idea of a sex manual, in reality a woman’s magazine feature, was introduced.

Unfortunately we are all too familiar with casual murders and botched investigations on this island but it is hard not to think that these two men were identified as sacrificial lambs to try to preserve the reputation of Mauritius as a holiday destination.

If the Christian principles that so animated Michaela’s short life are to mean anything, to have any import, then this verdict must be seen as the rescue of two innocent men from a dysfunctional, corrupt system.

Justice has been done, but not satisfied.