Why didn't Gemma O'Doherty mention Mary Boyle suspect was a convicted paedophile?

4 months ago
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Convicted paedophile Brian McMahon was arrested in November 2014 by a special garda team investigating Mary Boyle's disappearance from close to her grandparents' home at Cashelard, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal in March 1977. The case was eventually dropped by the DPP due to lack of evidence.

Curiously in Gemma O'Doherty's 'award winning' documentary on Mary Boyle, she fails to mention that Brian McMahon was a convicted paedophile, a strange omission for any journalist considering his victims gave permission to reporters to name their abuser.

O'Doherty says in the documentary: 'When he was arrested in relation to the kidnapping of Mary Boyle in October 2014, those seeking justice and many who knew Mr McMahon were deeply disturbed. A popular man in his local community who many believed had been done an earlier injustice by the state, they were adamant he had nothing to do with it'.

What a strange sentence! So vague and non-committal. A popular man who was in fact a recluse and who was convicted by a jury for his crimes. Why did O'Doherty go out of her way to protect Brian McMahon in the documentary?

At the end of the programme O'Doherty thanks defamation lawyer Paul Tweed who helped her win her unfair dismissal case against INM following the ousting of Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan over a convoluted penalty points story. Only big budgets can afford Paul Tweed. Who paid for the documentary? Clearly O'Doherty wasn't working alone. What was the real agenda behind it? During the programme, O'Doherty leads with a question to Mary Boyle's twin sister Ann Doherty: 'You made the decision to call for Noirín O'Sullivan's resignation...' Another chip at the credibility of An Garda Síochána, priming the way for the foreign takeover of The Force by Sir Drew Harris.

True to form, O'Doherty has lambasted Mary Boyle's family after making the documentary defaming her mother who lives alone, while a local politician (since deceased) claimed he was libelled by the notorious 'investigative journalist' and accused of political inference in the case which he categorically denied.

Last January, Mary Boyle's uncle, Gerry Gallagher died. He was the last person to see the little girl alive. Did he bring a dark secret to the grave with him? Or did someone abduct Mary Boyle that fateful day on March 18, 1977?

We still don't know all these years later.

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