Catherine McGowan acquitted of forgery and using a false instrument

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Detective Garda Catherine McGowan was acquitted of one count of forgery and two counts of using a false instrument after a 14-day trial. The jury took just under four hours to return unanimous not-guilty verdicts on all three counts.

The proceedings were reported on 12 March 2015. She had pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

The forgery charge concerned January 15, 2009 at Bray Garda Station. The two charges of using a false instrument concerned Bray Garda Station and Harcourt Street Garda Station between June 21 and 22, 2011. The alleged instrument was a letter from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, dated January 14, 2009.

The State alleged that she forged the letter to mislead gardaí reviewing her handling of allegations that a priest sexually abused a teenage girl. It also claimed she never sent the case file to the DPP, Chief State Solicitor or her superintendent.

Patrick Marrinan SC, defending, said exhaustive garda inquiries had failed to establish any link between Catherine McGowan and the priest that might provide a motive. He said there was no evidence she had been anything other than diligent in investigating the allegation. He described the station’s filing system as “fairly haphazard” and said 30 per cent of files requested during a Garda Professional Standards Unit review of the station could not be found.