A HIGH Court judge has described as “disgraceful” the handling by gardaí in Dublin of a woman’s complaint that she was abused by her grandfather as a child but has halted the woman’s action for damages against her grandfather on grounds of delay in bringing it.
Mr Justice Peter Charleton halted the now 24-year-old woman’s civil action against her 91-year-old paternal grandfather on grounds that the “inexcusable” delay in bringing it meant the man, who denies the claim, could not receive a fair hearing.
The woman alleged she was abused between the late 1980s and early 1990s at her grandparents’ Dublin home. She initiated the civil action last year, five years after making a formal complaint to gardaí.
The judge held, arising from the death last year of a key witness, the girl’s grandmother, that a hearing would take place “in the absence of any proper ability for the defendant to meet the claim of sexual abuse”.
The woman had sued her grandfather for allegedly sexually abusing her during the late 1980s and early 1990s when she was aged between four and seven. She claimed he had ruined her childhood and caused her to suffer alcoholism, depression and chaos in her adult life.
In his judgment granting the man’s application to stop the case, Mr Justice Charleton noted the woman claimed she was continually touched in a grossly inappropriate sexual manner by her grandfather when she went to visit.
In 1993, she told her mother about the alleged abuse and she claimed her mother rang up and warned the grandfather. He denied this. The allegations resulted in a family rift.
Several years later the girl, then in her mid-teens, became pregnant after getting involved with a man in his 20s, the judge said. After coming to the attention of the Probation services, she claimed she had been abused by her grandfather.
In 2003, a formal complaint was made by her to gardaí in the west of Ireland. While a garda there dealt with it properly and efficiently, the matter was “disgracefully” not followed up when the file was transferred to Dublin.
In 2008, the woman went to a firm of solicitors and a plenary summons was issued on her behalf against her grandfather. A complaint was made to the Garda Ombudsman Commission about the handling by Dublin gardaí of the allegations against her grandfather.
A finding of negligent handling of the matter was made and the relevant garda was “fined the very small sum of €150” .
The judge said the woman “was very badly let down” by An Garda Síochána.