A Garda based in Bray has gone on trial after being accused of forging a letter to the DPP in relation to the investigation of a priest accused of sexual abuse in 2009.
Garda Catherine McGowan pleaded not guilty today to one count of forgery in 2009 and to two counts of using a false instrument in 2011.
The court heard that Garda McGowan tried to deceive Gardai who were investigating allegations of a priest who had abused a teenage girl by allegedly forging a letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
It was claimed that in the forged letter McGowan had claimed that it would be “impossible” to convict the priest because of “conjecture” in the victims statement.
The court also heard that it will be claimed that she never sent a file on the case to the DPP, Chief State Solicitor or her superintendent.
It is understood that the priest in question was mentioned in the Murphy report into clerical abuse in the Dublin area which was released in 2009.
The case continues.
