Opinion: Families of murder victims have a legal right to information about the case

Joan Deane DEALING WITH THE death of a loved one is always difficult, but a death by homicide poses special problems.

You are thrown into a space where you have to deal with the gardaí, the media, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the State Pathologist, the Coroner and the court service so you may well feel overwhelmed by the volume of information you have to process. Clodagh’s mother Mary and her sister Jacqueline clearly felt that they were not supported by the authorities and they revealed that they found out how Clodagh was killed in the media.

The sense of helplessness commonly experienced following a homicide should not be compounded by a lack of access to information. I don’t know why the system failed the family of Clodagh Hawe so thoroughly, but families do have rights under an EU directive and the Victims of Crime Bill 2017. But at AdVIC we have had some reports from families that the family liaison officer isn’t working out well, for whatever reason. In those cases, we successfully advocated with the Gardai to change the liaison officer.

Justice does not always mean a trial in court and indeed justice is not always achieved in court either.

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