Cynthia Owen, the woman identified at an inquest as the mother of a child found stabbed to death in laneway 34 years ago, has called on the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to "act promptly" and investigate the Garda handling of the infant's murder in 1973. Ali Brackenreports.
An inquest into the infant's death was reopened in 2005 after Ms Owen initially came forward in 1995, claiming to be the mother of the child.
The jury unanimously found yesterday that Ms Owen was the mother of the baby girl she named Noleen and that she died at the family home in Dalkey from blood haemorrhage due to stab wounds.
In a statement later outside the Dublin County Coroner's Court, Ms Owen said: "When I eventually disclosed what had been going on to the Garda Síochána in 1995, they tried to investigate the matter with the view to prosecution, but they were severely handicapped because the investigation that was supposed to have been carried out in 1973 was compromised, if not a complete sham."
She continued that "contemporaneous direct evidence" from the 1973 murder investigation had "mysteriously went missing".
"This calls for a satisfactory explanation and I would ask the Minister for Justice to act promptly and have it investigated."
Ms Owen, who claims the infant was conceived as a result of sexual abuse in the family home, told the inquest over the four-day hearing that the infant was stabbed to death with a knitting needle by a woman in the family home before its body was dumped in a nearby laneway.
Ms Owen continued outside court: "I can categorically say that some of those in authority did know about the abuse . . . The authorities stood idly by during those terrifying years of my pre-teen and early teenage life."
Ms Owen also spoke about the effect the alleged sexual abuse had on her later life.
"Until around 1991, I was in a virtual state of denial about the protracted and brutal abuse that I suffered as a child."
However Ms Owen said she "suffered even more in knowing, and often hearing and seeing" her younger sister Frances, younger brothers Martin and Michael and niece Theresa also being abused.
"Now, at last, they have formally given my daughter back her name and I can begin to live the rest of my life."
Outside court, legal representative for Ms Owen's father, Peter Murphy snr, and three of her sisters, Catherine Stevenson, Esther Roberts and Margaret Stokes, said they were "shocked and distressed by the outcome" of the inquest.
"The family continue to strongly refute that there was any connection between Cynthia Owen and the infant found in Lee's Lane," Sharon McElligot said.
She continued that the family had gone through a "harrowing" four-day inquest "listening to wide-ranging details and allegations of a horrendous nature" and were now appealing for privacy.