A High Court case being brought by the family of a woman whose baby was found stabbed to death in a laneway more than 30 years ago was adjourned today for five weeks.
Four members of the Murphy family are appealing a controversial coroner's court ruling which recorded that Cynthia Owen was the dead baby's mother.
A jury at Dublin County Coroner's Court unanimously ruled on February 16th the newborn baby was Ms Owen's daughter.
The woman maintained the child was conceived as a result of sexual abuse in her family home and testified that she was repeatedly raped from the age of seven or eight into her teenage years by four different people.
The inquest ruled the baby had died at Ms Owen's family home at White's Villas in Dalkey, Co Dublin, on April 4th, 1973, of shock and haemorrhage due to multiple stab wounds when it was just hours old.
Her body was later dumped in Lee's Lane, Dun Laoghaire, with afterbirth wrapped in newspapers and a plastic bag. A
n open verdict was returned on the child's death as the jury could not apportion blame to any person due to the Coroner's Act of 1962.
However, numerous members of the Murphy family who have disputed she was abused, insist the baby was not hers. Her father, Peter Murphy Snr, and three of her sisters — Esther Roberts, Margaret Stokes and Catherine Stevenson — were granted leave to bring judicial review proceedings to overturn the jury's verdict by the High Court.
The case, which is being taken against Dublin County Coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty, will be mentioned again on July 17th.