Nora Wall

Nora Wall was the first woman in the history of the Irish State to be convicted of rape, the first person to sentenced to life imprisonment for rape and the ONLY person in the history of the Irish State to be convicted on "Recovered Memory" evidence. Her case is featured in the Journal of the Law Society of New South Wales, Australia (re concealment of evidence by the prosecution), as well as in "Studies" which is a prestigious Irish quarterly and by the Irish Court of Criminal appeal that struck down the Recovered Memory evidence. The Supreme Court in Massachusetts, USA is shortly going to hear the appeal of Father Paul Shanley a Catholic cleric who was also convicted on Recovered Memory evidence!

- Kilbarry1

                                           THE PASSION OF NORA WALL 

ABSTRACT
Nora Wall (formerly Sister Domimic of the Sisters of Mercy) was the first woman in the history of the Irish State to be convicted of rape, the first person to receive a life sentence for rape and the only person in the history of the State to be convicted on Repressed memory evidence. The collapse of the case against her was fortuitous. Both of her (female) accusers had made similar allegations against other persons, both male and female but the Defence were unaware of this. However a few days after her conviction in June 1999, her accusers sold their story to a tabloid newspaper which published their names for the first time. One of their previous victims recognised one name and contacted Nora Wall's family. The Prosecution then "discovered" that this woman should never have been called as a witness!

The case of her co-accused Pablo McCabe was even more tragic. He was a homeless schizophrenic man; thus he was neither a (direct) victim of anti-clericalism nor a target for "compensation". He was probably accused because it appeared more credible to have a man as the main rapist. In relation to one of the two rape allegations, the Defense was able to prove that McCabe could not possibly have been there on the date in question. The jury simply acquitted him on that count and convicted him (and Nora Wall) on the second rape charge which did not specify an exact date.

This case illustrates the danger of false allegations of child sexual abuse - especially those based on anti-clericalism.

1. Miscarriage of Justice

On 1st December 2005 the Court of Criminal Appeal in Ireland certified that former nun Nora Wall (Sister Dominic of the Sisters of Mercy), had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. During the course of the hearing it was revealed that a young woman was lying when she gave an eyewitness account under oath of seeing Ms. Wall help to rape a 10-year-old girl. The girl was allegedly raped by Pablo McCabe, a homeless schizophrenic man, while Nora Wall held her legs. The crime had allegedly taken place in a residential home run by the Sisters of Mercy in Cappoquin Co. Waterford.

At the Appeal hearing Patricia Phelan 32, testified that in 1996 a friend of hers, Regina Walsh, told her that she had been raped by Pablo McCabe and that Ms.Wall, then a Mercy nun had held her down. Regina Walsh had already made a complaint to Gardai and asked Ms. Phelan if she would make a statement. Ms Phelan did make a statement falsely claiming to have seen the rape. She went to the Central Criminal Court in June 1999 and gave evidence at the trial of Pablo McCabe and Nora Wall. Her evidence was crucial in securing the conviction of Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe.

Just how crucial was Phelan's evidence? There was a second major charge against the two accused - that they had raped Regina Walsh in on 8th January 1990 on the girl's 12th birthday - not an easy date for Walsh to get wrong. However there was clear proof that Pablo McCabe was in in a hostel in Dublin on that date - just prior to going to jail! Even in the atmosphere of anti-clerical hysteria that blanketed Ireland at the time, the jury might have started to doubt Walsh's credibility if it had not been for her "witness" friend. As it was, the jury found the two accused innocent on THAT rape charge but convicted them on the other.

[On 16 December 2005 the three judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal gave detailed reasons for their decision. In relation to Regina Walsh they accepted that there was a failure to disclose relevant evidence to the defence. This included the fact that Regina Walsh had made but not pursued an allegation of rape in England. (This was the "black man in Leicester Square" episode - see below). There was a failure to disclose her psychiatric history - which included the fact that she had first made the rape allegations while she was in a psychiatric hospital. There was the fact that Ms Walsh had recalled alleged episodes of rape by reference to flashbacks but there was no scientific evidence adduced to explain the phenomenon of flashbacks.]

After the Court of Criminal Appeal confirmed Nora Wall's innocence, she approached Patricia Phelan with her hand outstretched. According to Irish Independent journalist Ann-Marie Walsh "Ms Phelan threw her arms around the former Mercy nun and cried loudly before leaving the Court of Criminal Appeal with her sister Sarah, tears streaming down her face."

Nora Wall's main accuser Regina Walsh was not in court to witness this scene. Neither was Pablo McCabe. He died shortly before Christmas 2002 and was buried three weeks later after no-one had come to claim his body. Pablo McCabe never knew his parents. He had been brought up in St. Michael's and regularly returned there because he regarded it as his only home. That is how he came to be accused by women who were really looking for "compensation" from the Sisters of Mercy. Unlike Nora Wall he was an "accidental" victim!

2. Background to Miscarriage of Justice

2.1 Convicted of Rape
On 11 June 1999 Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe were found guilty of raping 10-year-old Regina Walsh in 1988. Nora Wall then Sister Dominic, had been the girl's guardian while she was in care at St. Michael's Care Centre in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. Sister Dominic became the manager of the new Centre shortly after it was built in the 1970s. The centre heralded a new approach to childcare, moving away from the large industrial school system to a system of smaller group homes. (It is ironic that a pioneer of this new child-centered approach was to come under vicious attack.)

Sister Dominic ran the group homes from 1978 to 1990. She left the Mercy order in 1994 and worked in hostels in Dublin and in a Romanian orphanage. After her conviction the media were to speculate obscenely about her work in these places.

50 year old Pablo McCabe was a diagnosed schizophrenic. In court he was described by his own legal team as a "vagabond and hobo". He spent his early years in the care of the Sisters of Mercy in St. Michael's and first met Nora Wall when he was trying to trace his mother. He said in evidence that he was a regular visitor to St. Michael's during the 1980s.

2.2 After the Conviction - The Media
After the conviction the media felt free to use vicious language about Nora Wall in particular - "Vile Nun", "Pervert Nun", "Mercy Devil", "I was Raped by Anti-Christ". Since Nora Wall seemed to have no reputation to lose, some editors decided to go beyond insults and to publish allegations that had never made made in court.

On 11 July 1999, the Sunday World carried a front page "exclusive" by crime correspondent Paul Williams. Entitled "Rape Nuns Abuse Pact with Smyth", it claimed that "evil nun Nora Wall, convicted for helping to rape a ten-year old child, also secretly provided children for sick paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth. The Sunday World has learned that depraved cleric regularly visited St. Michael's Childcare Centre in County Waterford where Wall - then Known as Sister Dominic - was working". A female counsellor "who works with the victims of this horror home revealed that Fr. Brendan Smyth may have abused children there. .....[she said] 'the information is very reliable and also very disturbing'".

[A few years later Nora Wall was to win Eur 175,000 libel damages from the Sunday World. THAT news was buried by the media].

However the viciousness of the media was to have unexpected results. On 17 June Regina Walsh gave an interview to The Star newspaper in which she claimed that she had also been raped by a "black man in Leicester Square" in London. This was news to Nora Wall's defence team. Moreover The Star published the names of Walsh and her "witness" Patricia Phelan. A Kilkenny businessman read the newspaper and recognised Phelan as the woman who had made a false rape allegation against himself! After some frantic searching he tracked down a brother of Nora's and the defence came into possession of this vital evidence. It was to prove the weapon which destroyed the State's case and saved the two accused.

2.3 Sentenced to Life
On 23 July 1999 Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe came before Judge Paul Carney for sentencing in the Central Criminal Court. Their Counsel Hugh Hartnett sought an adjournment or a stay on any sentence. He told the court that there appeared to have been a grave breach of non-disclosure of evidence by the State. The State had not disclosed that Ms Walsh alleged she had been raped in London. Neither had they disclosed that Patricia Phelan's allegations against an unnamed man had been dismissed in judicial review proceedings.

However Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley for the State, refused to accept that anything was wrong. He said that the Gardai were not aware of these matters during their investigations. He rejected the claim that there had not been full disclosure of evidence and said that these issues were not relevant to the case!!

The behaviour of Justice Carney was equally strange. He said that Nora Wall was the leader and had carried out a "gang rape" on the victim. He sentenced her to life imprisonment and Pablo McCabe to 12 years. He refused leave to appeal. Nora Wall was the first woman convicted of rape in the history of the State and now became the first person to receive a life sentence for that crime. Justice Carney may have had no option but to pass sentence at the time but he was aware of the undisclosed evidence. In those circumstances his comments and the unprecedented sentence seem extra-ordinary.

2.4 Convictions Quashed
Four days later on 27 July 1999, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the convictions of the two accused. The application to have the convictions set aside was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions. No new evidence had emerged in the previous few days. However the DPP had suddenly realised that Patricia Phelan should not have been called as a witness at all. The Office of the DPP had given this direction in 1997, but nevertheless, though inadvertence, she had been called. The staff of the DPP had not realised their mistake during the trial. The guilty verdict on 11 June had not jogged their memory, nor the article in The Star on 17 June, which named Ms. Phelan. Hugh Harnett's setting out the undisclosed evidence on the date of sentencing had not caused them to search their memories. In fact one wonders whether they would realise their mistake even today if Regina Walsh had not given that interview. Would Nora Wall still be in jail and would Pablo McCabe have died in prison rather than in freedom?

The question remained as to whether there should be a second trial. The DPP took another four months to decide that they would not seek to retry the case. However the Attorney General declared that neither Nora Wall nor Pablo McCabe would receive an apology. On 17 November 1999 a spokesman for the Attorney General told the media that the issue of an apology did not arise because the convictions had been quashed.

There the matter rested until 1st December 2005 when the Court of Criminal Appeal finally certified that Nora Wall had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Pablo McCabe was not there to receive HIS certificate. He died shortly before Christmas 2002, his body remained in the mortuary for three weeks awaiting relatives who never came and he was buried in a paupers' grave in January 2003. In a sense he was the ultimate victim. He was accused by a woman who was really targeting the Sisters of Mercy but believed it would be more credible to name a man as the main rapist. The homeless schizophrenic Pablo McCabe became a convenient target because he was being helped by Nora Wall!

3 Conclusion
The case of Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe established a number of extra-ordinary precedents in Irish law.

(a) Nora Wall was the first woman in the history of the State to be convicted of rape;
(b) She was the first person in Ireland to receive a life sentence for rape;
(c) It was the only case in the history of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions that a witness was called contrary to the instructions of the DPP;
(d) Regina Walsh said she had recalled the rapes after experiencing "flashbacks". This seems to be the only occasion a conviction was obtained on Repressed memory evidence in Ireland. (However in the USA "Repressed memory syndrome" has a long and contentious history).

The behaviour of the DPP and of Justice Paul Carney is also extra-ordinary. Throughout the trial the DPP failed to realise their "mistake" in calling Patricia Phelan as a witness. Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe were convicted on 10 June 1999; Regina Walsh gave her famous interview to The Star on 17 June including her allegation about being raped in London; the Kilkenny businessman recognised the name of Patricia Phelan and contacted the defence but still the DPP remained in ignorance of the facts. At the sentencing hearing on 23rd July the DPP refused the defence's application for an adjournment and denied that the newly discovered evidence was relevant. Finally in full knowledge of the new evidence, Judge Paul Carney made his comments about Nora Wall and gave her an unprecedented sentence of life imprisonment.

If Ireland was an anti-Semitic society and Nora Wall was Jewish, few would be in any doubt of how mistakes like this could be made. It is likely that Nora Wall was convicted because she had been a Catholic nun and in the 1990s a climate of hysteria had been created by the media in relation to child abuse. Nora Wall was originally accused in 1996 shortly after the broadcast by RTE of the TV documentary Dear Daughter; she was convicted in June 1999 one month after RTE's broacast of the States of fear series produced by Mary Raftery. Perhaps that explains why RTE's coverage of this miscarriage of justice has been so poor. Apart from news reports on trial days, RTE's covereage of the scandal was confined to a 30 minute programme in the "Would You Believe" series in January 2000.

A Note on Sources

1. Magill Magazine January 2000. This article by Harry McGee and Garret Brandon on Nora Wall was for several years the only detailed exposition of the case that appeared in the Irish media and it deals solely with the criminal case. There is no enquiry into the type of society that could produce such a perversion of justice.

2. The article "Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall" by Breda O'Brien appears in the Winter 2006 edition of the Jesuit quarterly review "Studies". It is available on the Internet http://www.studiesirishreview.ie/j/page102

3. Article in Sunday Independent 1st August 1999 by Kevin Moore "Ex-Nun Caught on a Legal See-Saw" is probably the best of the newspaper articles which you can find by trawling the net. http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/exnun-caught-on-a-legal-seesaw-520016.html Liz Allen's article in the same newspapeer on 21 November is also useful "Nora Wall Case Witness Known To Chief State Solicitor's Office" http://www.independent.ie/national-news/nora-wall-case-witness-known-to-chief-state-solicitors-office-521478.html

4. The News Reports of (the national broadcaster) RTE on the internet for the main trial dates are useful for "vital statistics" - 11 June 1999, 23rd and 27 July 1999, 17 November 1999, 1st December 2005. It is notable that apart from the actual trial dates, there is practically nothing about Nora Wall from RTE. Any useful newspaper articles also tend to cluster around the same dates. The issue of anti-clericalism and its effects on the Court system remains an almost unexplored subject by the Irish media.

5. The website www.inquisition21.com <http://www.inquisition21.com/> has a major article on Nora Wall: "Act of Infamy - The Nora Wall Story" which takes up most of its section on Ireland.

6. The Judgement of the Irish Court of Criminal appeal delivered on 16 December 2005 (Director of Public Prosecutions and Nora Wall - CCA 147/99) is at http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IECCA/2005/C140.html

7. The Journal of the Law Society of New South Wales (Australia) for June 2006 has an article by solicitor Greg Walsh entitled "Criminal Law: Obligation is on prosecutors to disclose". This includes a detailed discussion on the Nora Wall case. This section of the article can be found on the Alliance Support website at http://www.alliancesupport.org/news/archives/002008.html However there seems to be no equivalent article in the journal of the Irish Law Society.