Profile: A highly-educated, hard-working woman with a strong social conscience, Ireland's first female State Pathologist brings an impeccable track record to her new role, writes Conor Lally
Meeting those who have just met their maker wouldn't be everybody's idea of a rewarding career. But for the new State Pathologist, Dr Marie Threse Cassidy, being close to death is an occupational hazard.
All cases of murder and manslaughter in the Republic now revolve around her. Gardaí have to wait until she examines what remains of those who have died suspiciously before the body can be moved. She alone will decide the cause of death. And it is her evidence that will help convict and imprison the guilty or clear the innocent.
Lives and deaths are, literally, in her hands.
A 12-year veteran of the tough Glasgow and Strathclyde Scottish crime scene, where she performed post mortems for the police, Dr Cassidy has also worked for the UN in the Balkans and in West Africa. Between 1996 and 1999 she did several tours of duty in Bosnia for the UN War Crimes Tribunal. Her work involved excavating mass graves for the purposes of identifying those who died. She also determined whether causes of deaths were consistent with eyewitness accounts as to how massacres occurred - vital if war crimes convictions are to be secured.
In 1999 she led a small Scottish team to war-torn Sierra Leone. Their task was to excavate a grave containing the bodies of four African soldiers killed by rebels while on a UN peacekeeping mission.
From Rutherglen, a mixed middle and working class area just outside Glasgow, the 45-year-old is married with two children. Her husband, Phil, works in the electronics sector. Those who know her say she is outgoing and personable. She is well known for her sense of humour but is "as tough as she is thorough".
According to one Garda source, "She'd be well able to hold her own when banter is going back and forward. She's excellent at explaining things to people who wouldn't share her expert level of knowledge".
"She's a very bubbly character," says another garda. "She's very good-looking and you could say she's glamorous." She drives a Mercedes and drinks socially (although never at the same time).
Last Friday she officially assumed the €140,000-a-year State Pathologist's position, taking over from the now-retired Prof John Harbison. It is a demanding job which will involve travelling all over the country, often at short notice and at any time, to conduct post mortems.
She has turned down a huge number of requests for interviews since assuming the role of Deputy State Pathologist here in 1998, a post now vacant following her promotion. True to form, she preferred not to speak to The Irish Times this week.
However, she hasn't always been so reticent. She enjoyed a high media profile while working in Glasgow. One Scottish newspaper headline once dubbed her a "celebrity pathologist". It was speculated in Scottish Newspapers that she was the role model for the BBC's Silent Witness TV series, in which actress Amanda Burton plays plucky pathologist Sam Ryan.
She has appeared on at least one BBC TV documentary (about a Scottish firm of private investigators) with one reviewer dubbing her a "blonde bombshell". She has worked as a consultant on the TV series Taggart, and contributed material to a Scottish newspaper.
In Scotland on Sunday in July 1996, an article which appeared under her name bemoaned the increased violence apparent on the bodies of murder victims, a phenomenon she dubbed "overkill".
"The old days of the simple fight between two neds \, where they both pull out a knife and have a square go, have largely gone," she said.
Her sense of humour was apparent even when writing on such a serious issue: "In the court the accused says things like, 'I just got the sword off the living-room wall', or, 'I picked up the scythe which was just beside the chair', and I think, 'yes, that's where I keep mine too!'"
Before assuming the Deputy State Pathologist's position in the Republic in 1998, she worked for 12 years in Glasgow University's Department of Forensic Medicine. The department was part-funded by the Scottish Crown Service and so provided an around-the-clock post mortem service for Strathclyde police. She also undertook a number of research projects there. By the time she left the university to come here she had risen to the position of senior consultant forensic pathologist.
Her medical career began in Scotland, in Falkirk Royal Infirmary in 1978, where she worked as a surgical house officer. There followed a further six-month stint at a Lanarkshire hospital working as a medical house officer, and another six months working in the accident and emergency unit at a Dundee hospital. Between 1979 and 1985 she worked in histopathology - the study of diseases in tissues - at two Glasgow hospitals, before moving to Glasgow University in October 1985. One former university colleague says he believes that in those early months working with patients Dr Cassidy became "upset when people were dying".
"In pathology you can often make progress on the prevention of death," he says. The same source adds that Dr Cassidy has a strong social conscience, which she likes to apply to her work.
One of her most successful projects while in Glasgow involved the study of overdose deaths involving the heroin-replacement drug methadone. Her work led directly to a lasting significant fall in such deaths across Scotland.
Another senior academic who knew her for more than 10 years in Glasgow says Cassidy is "simply a marvellous person".
"If she was in company she wasn't familiar with she'd be more inclined to watch rather than participate, she can be reserved like that. But if she knows the people around her she's very friendly, not quite the life and soul of the party but close to it."
Senior legal sources in the Republic describe her as an extremely bright woman "at the very top of her game".
"She has a hugely impressive academic background, yet she's not a bit stuffy about it. There's no intellectual snobbery about her at all," says one senior counsel. Another barrister remarks: "She is not afraid to change her mind on things. People with massive egos would be afraid to do that and that's exactly how miscarriages of justice come about."
In 1999 in Scotland she famously changed her mind on evidence given by her in court years earlier which helped secure a murder conviction against 40-year-old Glasgow man Stuart Gair. He was convicted of the 1989 murder of 45-year-old Peter Smith, who was knifed to death at a public toilet on Glasgow's St Vincent Street, known as a gay cruising area.
Dr Cassidy's evidence was that a knife found at Gair's lodgings could have been the murder weapon. Gair was jailed but protested his innocence. Some 10 years later another pathologist disputed Dr Cassidy's evidence, saying the knife was too wide and short to be the murder weapon.
It then emerged that key evidence had been withheld from Dr Cassidy by the prosecution. Gair's lawyer said that Dr Cassidy had been asked to base her testimony on just 30 per cent of evidence held by the prosecution. In light of that, she told the media at the time: "If it means the difference between a man's liberty, I have no problems in holding up my hands and saying I was wrong."
Gair would, no doubt, thank her for her candour. He is currently freed on bail from Saughton Prison, Edinburgh. His appeal hearing is expected to be held this year.
One source in Scotland who has known her for almost 20 years says Dr Cassidy "thinks of herself as a very unlikely academic".
"I wouldn't say she's particularly ambitious. But she's very into her work and applies herself so hard that I'm not surprised to hear she has taken the State Pathologist's job in Ireland. Knowing her I'd say she'd have a strong sense of duty about her new role. She'll feel she has important work to do and that she must never let down the people of Ireland."
The Cassidy File
Who she is:
Dr Marie Threse Cassidy.
Why in the news?
She has just been appointed State Pathologist, taking over from Prof John Harbison.
Most appealing characteristic.
Her ever present bubbly charm.
Least appealing characteristic.
Her refusal to grant media interviews.