The fingerprint affair - Now up to Gerry Collins

THE NON-PROSECUTION of officers formerly in the fingerprint section of the Gardai is in spite of a finding that several "mistakes" were made by these officers in fingerprint identification over the last several years.

It is important to rememmber in connection with the fingerprint issue that according to one of the world's foremost authorities on the science, Andre A. Moenssens, it is virtually impossible for a gennuine mistake to be made by a competent fingerprint expert. He has written in his seminal work, "Fingerprint Techhniques", "When a competent technician uses the required margin of safety in estabblishing identity (presence of sufficient number of identical chacteristics in both prints) it is virtually impossible for another equally competent technician to disagree".

The "mistake" in the case of the murder of the British ambassador was the most serious by far of the cases investigated by the Director of Public Prosecution. In this case a workman's helmet, found at the scene of the assassination, was examined by Dt. Sgt. Michael Diggin who concluded that there was no fingerprint mark on it. Later the helmet was exammined by the then head of the fingerprint section, Dt. Insp. William Byrne, who discovvered a fingerprint mark and then after a search of the fingerprint files for six weeks for a matching set of fingerrprints, those of Martin Taylor were identified as being idenntical, by an associate of Byrne's, Dt. Sgt. John Garavin. Byrne himself confirmed the "identification" .

Diggin, suspicious about the discovery of the fingerrprint on the helmet in the first place, independently exxamined the "discovered" fingerprint and Taylor's fingerprints and concluded that there was no basis for establishing identity. He passed the matter over to a colleague, Dt. Sgt. Pat Corliss who agreed that there was not an identification but when they raisedthe matter, first with Insp. Byrne and then with the head of the Technical Bureau, Chief Super. Tony McMahon, they 'met with obdurate opposition and hostility.

Byrne declared that he was prepared to go into court and swear that the fingerprint on the helmet was that of Taylor and when it, was pointed out to him that the consequence of that might be that the man would be hanged he said that he was still going ahead.

Even following a meeting in MacMahon's office at which all senior fingerprint experts in the section, agreed that the mark on the helmet was not that of Taylor, both MacMahon and Byrne remained insistent' that the "identification" should stand. The then Garda Commissioner, Edmund Garvey, was informmed of the affair through intermediaries but he too failed to take any action.

It was only when Diggin discovered that the mark on the helmet had been made by himself- i.e. that it was his own fingerprint imposed on the helmet after he had cornnpreted his examination oriiginally - did the authorities relent.

In March of last year the then Minister for Justice, Patrick Cooney, who made a grossly misleading statement in the Dail on the affair, stating that the original idenntification was not conclusive and that further fingerprint evidence was awaited. This ~ was entirely untrue. In the ~ first place there is no such ~ thing as an "inconclusive" ~ fingerprint identification. (Moenssens writes: "In fingerrprinting then, there is no such thing as a probable idenntification ... ) and there was no question of awaiting further fingerprint evidence - Byrne had stated he was prepared to go into court with what he had got. It is difficult to see how Cooney did not know that what he was telling the Dail was untrue, but that possibility obviously remains. An investigation of the affair was conducted by the now Garda Commissioner, Patrick McLaughlin. He confirmed that a grave "error" had occurred but, apparently, he did not apportion blame.

When the change of Govvernment occurred, Commissioner Garvey precipitated any action by the new Governnment on the matter by reeassigning, not only the two officers, Byrne and Garavin, who had been responsible for the error, but the two officers, Diggin and Corliss, who had exposed the affair. The new Minister for Justice, Gerry Collins, was deeply annoyed by the move and this was one of the reasons for the dismissal of Garvey last January.

On complaint by Diggin and Corliss, the DPP took up the matter and requested the present Commissioner, Patrick McLaughlin, to exxamine the affair still further. Not only was the British ambassador's case examined but four other cases, the Garda Fallon case, the Elizaabeth Plunkett case, the Sallins murder case and a case involving an O'Driscoll in Co. Cork. A special panel of fingerprint experts was set up to assist the DPP, these included two other officers in the fingerprint section, Hogan Garvey and McDonagh. Outtside expertise was also emmployed.

In everyone of the cases examined, "mistakes" were discovered, although there was some confusion about the Sallins case- this was where a man was found murdered beside the DublinnCork railway line near Sallins and a UVF man identified as the culprit. The affair caused considerable friction between the Garda and the RUe fingerprint sections, who normally work in close asssociation with one another.

The DPP has now decided not to institute any proosecutions in the affair and though there were rumours that he was subjected to political pressure not to proosecute, the fact is that he made the decision entirely uninfluenced by any outside person. The DPP found that Corliss and Diggin had behaved

with absolute propriety throughout and that everything they alleged was facctually correct.

However the affair remains of special concern to the DPP. He has to decide almost on a daily basis whether to proosecute on the basis of fingerrprint evidence and if he is in any way suspicious of the authenticity of the Garda fingerprint section, then he is placed in a very innvidious situation. It is thought likely that he will insist on radical changes of personnel and procedure within the section before he is entirely satisfied to operate on the basis of evidence supplied to him from that quarter.

Meanwhile attention is being focussed on statements made in court by the two principle characters in the affair, Byrne and Garavin. On Thursday September 22 last Inspector Byrne giving eviddence on oath said in reply to the question, "You are head of the fingerprint deepartment"? "Yes". At the time he had been transferred to head of CID courses, though there could have been an understanding between him and Garvey that he remained theorectically head of the fingerprint section. If the latter is the case it raises interesting questions about Mr. Garvey.

Then on February 23 last Garavin said in the Central Criminal Court that he had never made a mistake in fingerprint identification nor did· he know of any of his colleagues who had. This statement would be true if the error in the British ambasssador case was not a misstake but was deliberate.

Gerry Collins refused to make any detailed statement about the affair until the DPP had decided on the issue of criminal charges, but now that that matter is out of the way the Minister is expected to make a full statement in the near future.