Judge Martin Nolan, the Most Imperfect of Robberies, and the 'Accidental' Death of Jacqueline McGovern

There has probably never been a better time to conspire to kill someone and get away with it, than in those early spellbound months of 2020

The author has no personal connections to this incident and has had no contact with any members of the deceased’s family. I did not try to access a court recording or transcript because the court judge in the case was Martin Nolan. All supporting media references below have been saved, some archives have been linked and may take longer to load.

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It was Tuesday March 10th 2020, and Jacqueline McGovern, a married mother of three from Killiney in South Dublin, was out on her regular evening walk with her friend and colleague, Audrey Behan. It was a dry clear evening, there was a full moon, and temperatures were twelve degrees celsius - mild for March. Both women worked with vulnerable children as special needs assistants at Our Lady of Good Counsel girls national school in Cabinteely. The school has three classes for girls with autism.

The Incident

At approximately 9:30 pm, both women were struck by a car at the bottom of Avondale Road in Killiney, at the point where it meets Ballinclea Road. As far as we know, the Nissan Almera that hit them - purchased previously by the gang and not stolen - was traveling from the scene of a robbery of a Centra store on Barnhill Road some minutes before. Avondale road was the unlikely route that the raiders chose for their escape, and the same road where Jacqueline always walked.

According to court proceedings, the driver Darren Rowe lost control of the car while fleeing the robbery at speed, resulting in the collision. The car mounted the pavement and Jacqueline was thrown onto the bonnet and carried for several metres. She was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where she was pronounced dead. Her friend Audrey Behan was injured but survived. The three occupants then fled the scene on foot. What followed was an unusual series of events in which they comprehensively incriminated themselves. Just over a week later, after multiple conflicting media reports relating to timing and circumstances, arrests were made. Trials were held less than a year later - record timing for Ireland’s normally slow-moving justice system. The most striking thing about this case is how perfectly convenient everything was—for the prosecution, and for the court of Judge Martin Nolan.

Irish Times two days after the death of Jacqueline McGovern

The Irish Media

Media coverage of the killing dropped sharply following the funeral a week later. There were no long-form investigative follow-ups or background explorations beyond emotional tributes to a well-loved woman who had devoted much of her life to working with vulnerable children. Details and exposure of the three men convicted of the crime and explorations of their true motives emerged in patches throughout the Irish media’s coverage of the incident, but the full story remains opaque. There were often considerable inconsistencies in reporting across Irish media outlets.

No questions were asked in the media about motive, or whether the robbery and getaway story actually made any sense. At no stage during the media or court processes did anyone ask if the collision might have been deliberate. Several basic lines of inquiry seem to have been ignored by both the media and the courts: we know for example that one of the raiders had previously been jailed for violently assaulting a special needs/disabled female. We never found out which raider had the conviction. One obvious question was never asked: could it have been the driver? This important detail appeared in two newspaper articles in the days following the collision. The Irish Times reported that the victim was a disabled person, then the Irish Independent mentioned that it had been a disabled woman that was assaulted, nine days later. The issue then vanished from all media reporting up to and including the three sentencing hearings.

The Irish Independent had the names of at least five reporters attached to the story across all of their reports, with three names or more attached to each individual report in the byline, and yet crucial details were missed or omitted. Or a senior editor omitted them later. To the casual observer, the Irish Independent’s coverage looked exhaustive on the face of it, every night for roughly ten days their reporting on the case appeared at exactly 3.30 am. Everything from vague drug-debt robbery motivation angles (that made little sense given it was very unlikely there would be much money there on a quiet Tuesday night), to unusual crime gang taunting stories that said one of those involved in the robbery was a killer. We do not know the source for these details obviously, and it is not clear how they might have helped the investigation facing the public. Nor do we know who released these details. These stories and more made the Independent’s front pages in the days following Jacqueline’s killing. Again, extraordinary public and sensational details for a hit-and-run. Both of those stories served to complement the drug debt angle that was never mentioned in court, and provided some semi-understandable motive for the robbery and death to the reading public. They also served to muddy the waters substantially. Court reporting from all three sentencing hearings never mentioned the drug-debt angle, or the rival crime gang taunting episode.

The Special Needs Connection

More questions naturally follow. Had one of the children Jacqueline cared for been that disabled female who was assaulted? Had that child or other children confided in Jacqueline about things that might be happening in their lives? Had someone found out that Jacqueline knew something she shouldn’t? An imaginative leap perhaps, but consider what follows: many of the key conclusions drawn by Martin Nolan’s court are barely credible.

There is extensive peer reviewed evidence that nine autistic women out of ten have been victims of sexual violence. US justice department figures show that persons with intellectual disabilities are seven times more likely to be sexually assaulted than non-disabled peers. There is a common sense reason for this - they are less able to talk about their experiences. This is the silent sexual assault epidemic sweeping across the West, at a time when Autism rates are exploding to 1 in 30 children - when in the year 2000 it was 1 in 150. It is a factual assertion to state that special needs classrooms are more likely to be scenes of abuse—either on site, or on the periphery. They can become galleries for predators to single out the most vulnerable and isolated.

The pressing question remains: was there a connection between the assault of the disabled woman/girl by one of the gang, and Jacqueline’s school and work, and ultimately her death? These were obvious lines of inquiry, questions judge Martin Nolan likely never considered, given his much publicised track record in cases involving vulnerable, exploited, and sexually abused children. It is not hyperbole to say that there is not a depraved paedophile or rapist in Ireland who wouldn't want to be absolved of their sins by his eminence Martin Nolan. If you are not already aware, you can explore his child protection record here, and here, here, and here. You will also find plenty more with your own basic research of news stories involving his name and associated depravity. One petition for his removal has over 67000 signatures. When judge Martin Nolan is involved in a case with vulnerable children, either at the centre or on the periphery - as is the case here given Jacqueline McGovern’s work - questions have to be asked.

The tip of the iceberg

Given the ubiquitous media-driven Covid disorientation surrounding the Irish public at the time of Jacqueline McGovern’s killing, it is perhaps understandable that many of the finer details of the story were lost on the public. An easy to digest story that touched on all of the usual cliches was presented to us (drug debt angle, convicted criminals, defective car, robbery getaway gone wrong), and most of us reasonably swallowed it. Another tragedy.

The Irish media complex held the entire nation under a spell with their highly questionable and one-sided reporting of the unprecedented Covid situation. Most people who bought into the picture the media was painting at that time were in fear for their own lives, and for the lives of their families. Given the thrall the Irish media held the population in during those months, it is not unreasonable to speculate that there has probably never been a better time to conspire to kill someone and get away with it - than those early spellbound months of 2020.

Personally, by March 10th 2020 this author was already squinting hard at the official story surrounding the separate recent killing of a different woman who worked with vulnerable children. Nuala Grant was killed in Dublin less than a week before Jacqueline McGovern was. Ms Grant from Raheny had worked for almost 15 years as a social worker in a child protection team but more recently had worked in play therapy for children in a private capacity. Nuala was struck in the most unusual of circumstances on a very difficult to access cycleway near St Annes Park in Dublin, a very long distance from the entrance to the pathway, on the other side of Dublin bay on March 5th. Most of the puzzle pieces were missing for Nuala’s story at the time and they still are - there has been absolutely nothing about the incident in the news regarding any kind of trial or sentencing that I could find. Already predisposed, the official story around Jacqueline’s death started to unravel quite quickly under basic examination.

Here we had two women killed in bizarre hit-and-run circumstances during arguably the most opportune time for a suspicious death to be forgotten since the Irish Civil War. Both worked with vulnerable children. The more I researched similar incidents, the more I found that the pattern of strange deaths involving people who work with vulnerable children in Ireland - usually involving cars moving at high speed - extends far beyond just Jacqueline McGovern and Nuala Grant in the last ten years. Jacqueline McGovern’s case is probably the tip of the iceberg.

Three sentencing hearings in late 2020/early 2021

The trials of the three men involved in the death of Jacqueline McGovern happened unusually soon after the incident - these were expedited trials. Three men were convicted by Judge Martin Nolan. What emerged - and what didn't - tells its own story

Darren Rowe (35), the Driver, of Monkstown in Dublin (six kilometres from where the incident took place), was the driver of the Nissan Almera used as the getaway car. He was sentenced by judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in December 2020 after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of Jacqueline McGovern, and failing to report being the driver of a vehicle involved in an injury collision.

The court heard that Rowe had been drinking in a pub with his co-accused shortly before the robbery, then drove at speed to collect the two men who had just robbed the Centra in Dalkey. The court heard that he lost control of the vehicle on Avondale Road, mounting the footpath and striking Jacqueline McGovern and her colleague Audrey Behan. The impact was so severe that McGovern was thrown onto the bonnet and carried for several metres. Rowe was tracked on CCTV after fleeing the scene without helping the women and was heard saying to his co-accused, “Eddie, what am I after doing?”. The men were later seen in a local pub drinking a pint and sitting with their heads in their hands.

In sentencing, Judge Nolan described Rowe’s driving as “appalling” and noted the following aggravating factors: he was driving at a reckless speed while trying to escape, lost control of the vehicle, mounted a footpath in a residential area, drove a defective vehicle, had no insurance, was disqualified from driving at the time, and had evidence of pre-robbery drinking. Rowe had 32 previous convictions. By any measure this was a seasoned and experienced career criminal by the time this incident took place. This killing was his 33rd conviction.

Also highlighted was the fact that Rowe fled the scene without offering any assistance to the women he had struck. Brendan McGovern, Jacqueline’s husband, told the court that the family would never be the same again and the loss would impact him every day for the rest of his life. Audrey Behan, who survived the crash, told the court in her victim impact statement that the “violent and reckless way” her friend was taken that day while they were out walking would “haunt her for the rest of her life”. She said she still suffers physical and psychological effects from her injuries, and described her heartbreak at the loss of her best friend whose smile she said would “light up the darkest of rooms”.

Mitigating factors according to Judge Martin Nolan included Rowe’s guilty plea, his expressions of remorse, his previous work history (did Nolan mean 32 offences or the offences he wasn’t caught for?), and what the judge described as ‘genuine insight into his wrongdoing and capacity for reform’. Judge Martin Nolan imposed a sentence of seven and a half years imprisonment (90 months).

Terry Meegan Jr. (27), shop robber, of Loughlinstown Woods, (about five kilometres from where the incident took place), was one of the two men who entered the Centra store (now Barnhill stores) and carried out the robbery. He was sentenced by judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in February 2021.

The sentence was structured as two years and three months for the robbery, to run consecutively with a separate two-year sentence for an unrelated violent trespass and assault that Meegan had been on bail for at the time of the Centra robbery. That prior offence occurred on December 26, 2019, when Meegan forcibly entered the apartment of one Aidan Byrne at Ridgehall Apartments, Ballybrack, striking him twice in the face. He pleaded guilty to trespass, criminal damage and assault.

Important contrast: the above assault was noted at sentencing and across the media at the time of sentencing. Yet there no mention of that previous assault of a special needs person by one of the perpetrators by the media or the prosecution barristers or the judge. Jacqueline McGovern’s work was about helping disabled/special needs children. It was almost as if the prosecution, the judge, and the media wanted that fact forgotten about. The prosecution’s case would have been stronger had it been included.

Meegan had 34 previous convictions, including for possession of firearms, possession of drugs, and road traffic offences. The court heard that on the date of the robbery at approximately 9:10 pm (accounts vary), Meegan and Edward Andrews entered the shop in Dalkey, Andrews made threats, and the men stole roughly €800. They then fled to a car driven by Darren Rowe, who drove away and hit the two women.

After the crash, the car was abandoned and the three raiders fled. Meegan later called into a home and asked the people there to burn his clothes. CCTV footage obtained by gardaí showed the three men drinking in a pub prior to the robbery.

Detective Garda Deirdre Finn agreed with defending counsel that this was “a shocking incident from start to finish” and confirmed Meegan was sitting in the back seat of the car. The defence noted that Meegan was granted bail to undergo residential treatment for his drug addiction, which he completed, and was awaiting further treatment.

In sentencing, judge Martin Nolan said there was mitigation by way of the guilty plea, remorse, and the steps taken by the accused to reform himself. However, Nolan stated these were two serious crimes and that in this case “punishment must take priority over rehabilitation”. He took into account the time Meegan had already served in custody when deciding on the sentence, and ordered that both sentences run consecutively, resulting in an operating sentence of four years and three months imprisonment (51 months). 34 previous convictions, an armed robbery, a special needs teacher dead, another one’s life gravely impacted, and judge Martin Nolan presented the accused as having potential for reform. Wild.

Edward Andrews (26), shop robber, of Belarmine Hall, Stepaside (ten kilometres from the incident site), was the second man who entered the Centra with Terry Meegan and made threats during the robbery. Of the three, we know least about Edward Andrews - his past, his trial, almost nothing. He was sentenced by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in December 2020. We know very little about this trial, or Edward Andrew’s past. In some newspaper reports his trial took place in December 2020 (the journal), in others, October (Irish Independent). Beyond sloppy by the Irish media. His trial also wasn’t reported on - it was only mentioned in the stories about the other two trials. We know nothing about it.

The court heard that Andrews, who was armed with a knife during the robbery, threatened staff at the Centra store, including a 79-year-old man - the owner at the time - before fleeing with Meegan to Rowe’s waiting car. Similar details about the robbery are repeated.

Andrews was initially refused bail when charged, with Detective Garda Robert Clifford objecting due to the seriousness of the case and noting “there is a possibility of further serious charges arising out of this incident” (details about those potential charges were never disclosed). Andrews’ solicitor confirmed at the time that he was pleading not guilty and that the evidence was “seriously challenged by the accused”.

After the fatal collision, he fled the scene with the others and was arrested over a week later following a Garda investigation. Details of Andrews’ prior criminal history were not reported in the available search results and not disclosed in court reporting. Mitigating factors according to Nolan included his guilty plea and cooperation with the investigation. Nolan noted that while Andrews played a direct role in the robbery, his sentence reflected his level of participation relative to his co-accused. He was sentenced three years and three months… (39 months) in prison.

Summing up the three sentencing hearings from the top: 90 months, 51 months, and three years and three months (or 39 months). And this killing happened at 930pm, and was the driver Rowe’s 33rd conviction.

In all of the trial reporting around the case the media never told us which of the three had previously assaulted a disabled woman/girl previously. The only thing we know is that the same suspect had experience with smash-and-grab robberies. This may have been all of them, or it may have been only Darren Rowe the driver: indications relating to previous media reports from 2012 involving a Darren Rowe from Monkstown will be explored below. Judge Martin Nolan presented all three men to the public - and to the juries - as remorseful souls who had made a terrible mistake. Not the hardened multiple-conviction criminals that we know at least two of them were from the sentencing reports.

We also don’t know why investigating Gardai in charge said after two days that there was ‘no rush in arresting the perpetrators’ as they knew who was involved. Odd, as it gave them time to work on their stories together, or commit more crimes to pay off the notional drug debt we were told about by the media. We also do not know how many times judge Martin Nolan had interacted personally with these three criminals previously, in the professional sense of course! One wonders how many times Nolan had met them before, and if it was possible that Nolan’s notorious sentencing approach was ultimately responsible for Jacqueline McGovern’s death. Why were at least two men, each with over thirty convictions, at liberty to perpetrate this crime in the first place?

The Robbery Narrative

There are many questions about the official narrative of this case. Individually, each could be waved away as an unexplained anomaly. Taken together, they change the picture entirely. Let us consider the events sequentially.

Conception

The basic genesis and facts of the robbery itself are open to inquiry. Does it make sense that three experienced career criminals chose to rob a convenience store on a quiet cold Tuesday night in March, when most of the country was staying indoors due to the situation at the time? We know from reporting that at least one of them had plenty of experience in smash and grab robberies, and escaping from them. Does it make sense that they would target a shop in an area they knew well, where they had very likely been seen before at some point in their lives, and one that was difficult to escape from given the location and amount of local Garda stations (map below), and the reduced amount of cars on the road in general at that time?

There was never going to be much cash available from the day’s takings on a quiet Tuesday evening. These experienced men would have known that. We were fed a drug debt motivation angle by the media and local Gardai in the days following the killing, but this was never actually confirmed. This random nugget would have made the story make sense to the casual reader, adding some intrigue while at the same time tuning people out of the details - ‘oh, it was a drug thing, such a shame’ etc. The drug-debt angle gave readers a satisfying explanation - and permission not to ask any questions." It is however debatable whether three experienced criminals with a significant enough drug debt to risk a robbery in a car they knew was about to fall apart, would execute a risky robbery like this on an evening that all of them would have known would be a slow takings day. Curiously, in an already curious case, there was no CCTV in operation at the Centra store that day either. The 79 year old staff member who was there that day, who was likely the owner given his age, can possibly explain. Were there any other staff there that night or were they given the night off? What time did he call 999? Why did the robbers flee towards Cabinteely Garda station, which they would have known was in that direction, given they are all from the area? Were they not worried that Gardai had been called and the panic button had been pressed in the shop?

The convenience store they chose to rob was and still is also located on the difficult side of five Police/Garda stations in a very affluent, well-policed region of Ireland. The men themselves are all from the area and would have known all of this detail. Here is a map of the wider area.

Area map

Google map of general area with Garda stations, with added key locations: why would the career-criminals speed towards a local Garda station at Cabinteely? Why would they risk robbing a shop on a low-takings Tuesday night, in a defective car, in an area surrounded by Garda stations? Why would they rob a shop in an area where all three men were risking being seen by someone they knew? Unless the robbery was just a pretext - a distraction from something else entirely to make the ultimate hit-and-run story make more sense. Unless the robbery was never the point.

They also risked being identified by someone they knew in carrying out this robbery. We know from several sources - many linked above and below - that all three men met in a pub just before carrying out the robbery. This is highly unusual - experienced criminals would know this was a bad idea when planning a robbery - especially in their own local area. It is certainly possible that these are Ireland’s dumbest criminals, but even stupid people have basic instincts.

The bizarre, pre-robbery, local pub meeting served a purpose: it gave Judge Nolan a mitigating factor to lean on at sentencing. It also fed the narrative that this was a drunken accident, not a targeted killing. It was also one of the many factors that fed the idea that no questions needed to be asked about whether this collision was targeted and deliberate. The ‘accidental’ loss of control of the car scenario that was presented to the public and family made more sense to the reading public with drink involved. In general, career criminals do not need alcohol to settle nerves before a simple shop robbery, so why were they there? The fact is that by publicly going drinking together before the robbery in a local pub, the robbers actually helped lower their sentences compared to the alternative: had witnesses not seen them drinking together before the events that happened that night more questions might have been asked about how they managed to ‘lose control’. Combined with the defective car narrative, it painted the perfect picture.

The defective getaway car that was purchased… but not stolen

In many ways the defective car is the lynchpin of the entire narrative. The defective nature of the car made more plausible the idea that control was simply lost by the driver, due to the car being defective. The defective car linked the purchasers to the crime and went a long way to making court proceedings extra fast. Not only for prosecutors, but also for the public and friends and family, for whom the story had to make sense.

It is highly unusual for experienced career criminals to purchase - rather than steal - a car for a robbery. We know that immediately following the death of Jacqueline McGovern, Gardai spoke to the person who sold the car and ‘ruled them out of their inquiries’. The man from Bray who sold the car to the robbers for ‘a small sum’ would have confirmed the fact that the car was defective, and who had bought the car from him. He would later confirm the car's defects in court - a key piece of evidence for the prosecution.

Judge Martin Nolan ruled that mitigating factors in sentencing included the fact that Darren Rowe was driving a ‘defective vehicle’, this was all confirmed because they purchased it, and the previous owner was able to testify to those ends. A Detective Garda Davern who seems to have had experience with some of the criminals and who had more than likely dealt with at least one of them before when testifying in previous cases - also testified at length as to the defective nature of the car, with it’s bald tyres and suspension problems. (Note: The Darren Rowe from Monkstown in that linked Newstalk report was noted to be 19 in 2012, which means he couldn’t have been 35 at the time of this trial in 2020 - another unexplainable media or courts discrepancy, or another Darren Rowe from Monkstown who does smash-and-grab robberies). Davern said “the tyres were in very poor condition, with the rear tyres having a depth below the legal limit and one tyre with the canvas showing. The brake pads on the rear passenger side were down to the metal and not serviceable. The braking pressure was very low and the shock absorbers very soft”. His explanations about the defective nature of the vehicle would have contributed substantially to persuading the jury that this killing was indeed an unfortunate accident and that the car itself was really to blame for this tragedy, and not the driver.

The question also has to be asked as to why judge Martin Nolan allowed a local Garda with a professional history with some of the accused to testify about the road worthiness of the car, and not an independent expert in car mechanics or crash scene investigations or forensics. The defence would have agreed to it despite the conflict of interest and possible bias present - because it suited them.

To summarise the defective car situation: we were instructed to believe that a gang of experienced career criminals used the same car they had bought themselves in person, with the same license plate attached, in a robbery they carried out in their own home area. We are also led to believe that they chose to use a hugely defective car that they would have known could have broken down on them at any point during their getaway, or in the event of a potential police pursuit. In what is a generally secure area with plenty of Garda presence, this made little sense. Why not just steal a reliable car like any other criminal gang would do, and burn it out afterwards? Who robs a shop in their own defective car?

The collision story

The collision story is a complicated one, hampered by reporting standards. I have tried to be as exhaustive as I can and have examined every available report online, all of which I have saved and archived. Detail is key here so please bear with me: some of the detail we do have is damning. All reporting mentions that Jacqueline was hit on Avondale road. Judging by this memorial scene in the Irish Mirror on 19th of March, she was technically hit on Ballinclea road, just after Avondale road ends. We will explore this below.

Irish Mirror, 19 March, memorial site which is the only evidence we have of the exact collision site.

Again, more errors across Irish media, and basic details left out of reporting. What is unclear from all of reporting is whether the gang traveled down Avondale Road before hitting Jacqueline on the wrong side of the road, or whether they traveled down Ballinclea road and then hit Jacqueline. Family and investigators need to verify this. The map of the area where the robbery and collision took place including all available escape routes is visible above. The robbers all would have known where Cabinteely Garda station was. Why would they have driven in that direction?

The gang are from the area themselves as established above in the sentencing details: they would have done some basic planning for their escape (surely) and yet they chose the one road with heavy speed bumps. Some of those traffic calming speed bumps are very substantial, ones that must be slowed down for.

Detective Garda Davern appears again at this point. Davern told Judge Martin Nolan at Darren Rowe’s sentencing hearing that “the car had been traveling at speed (down Avondale road) when it struck a speed ramp and elevated/went up in the air, then turned anticlockwise, struck the kerb, before mounting the pavement and striking the two ladies”. There was no CCTV of the event, no witnesses, and yet this was his firm conclusion, accepted by judge Martin Nolan. This tenuous conclusion would have been favourable to everyone who might have been involved in what could have been a targeted killing. The point where Jacqueline McGovern and Audrey Behan were hit was just after the final speed bump on Avondale road, which is definitely one of the less severe bumps. Why would a gang who knew this area well choose this route of all possible routes for their escape? We don’t know for certain if they took this route due to a total lack of clarity from the media - but it has however been implied that they took this road before hitting Jacqueline. Here is a video of that drive from the scene of the robbery to the collision site, filmed recently. No need to watch all of this video, but it shows the severity of the speed bumps if you need convincing.

In light of the testimony of Garda Davern the question has to be asked: ‘was this the first speed bump the gang sped up to elevation speed’ for? They had been through eight bumps already on the way down the road, and the ‘defective car’ had survived to that point.

And there’s something else. On December 22nd 2020 after the aforementioned sentencing hearing of Darren Rowe, the Leinster Leader newspaper - now Kildare Live - posted their court report. I archived it that week here. They noted:

A witness described how the car overtook her at high speed dangerously and driving on the wrong side of the road close to Avondale Road.

She came upon Avondale Road and saw two women, one of whom, Ms Behan, was screaming for help and another lying on the road, behind the car that had just overtaken her at speed.

Link to Kildare live

This witness testimony is somewhat open to interpretation, however it does imply that before reaching the roundabout just before Avondale road (on Barnhill road, where the witness stated they seen the car), the car was already on the wrong side of the road, and continued on the wrong side of the road. If this was a targeted attack, the gang would only have been close to sure that the two women would be on Avondale road, they wouldn’t have known where exactly on the road they would be or on what side. If this location was chosen because this was a walking route that Jacqueline took regularly, they would have known what side she walked on. Therefore, going down Avondale road, the general direction the car took away from Barnhill stores, they may have had to be on the wrong side of the road if traveling at speed, so that they could make the final steering adjustment towards Jacqueline McGovern when seen. Remember, this killing took place at night, and car headlights focus on the road, not the penumbra visibility area on the footpath where Jacqueline would have been walking.

Mentioned court witness reference points, testified car driving on wrong side of the road - this is one of the possible escape routes.

The family may want to hire an investigator, to try to find out for certain from the witness if the car definitely continued on the right side of the road after the witnessed overtaking manoeuvre, as it may signal intent. Regardless, Jacqueline seems to have been hit on the left hand side of the bottom of Avondale road judging by the floral memorial picture above from the Irish Mirror above. The marks on the grass in the Irish Times photo from the day after suggest that the car could have come from Ballinclea road in the above map.

Irish Times scene photo March 11 2020, apparently showing tyre marks. It looks like the car had lost a right tyre at this point of the mission - how and why were they still moving so fast with no one in pursuit? Note the perfectly in-tact and untouched stop sign and area sign, both solid steel

The fact remains that if Jacqueline was hit on the right side of the road after the car went down Avondale road (option 1), from the perspective of the robbers traveling away from Barnhill (which by all crash scene photographs and indications it seems they were) then the car, if traveling on the left side of the road, apparently crossed the road after that final speed-bump and elevation episode Garda Davern mentioned, to somehow hit Jacqueline. It is difficult to imagine that they could have hit Jacqueline by accident if they were traveling on the correct (left) side of the road, and she was on the right where the memorial flowers were.

If the car traveled down Ballinclea road (option 2) from Barnhill road, a convoluted escape route as it also has speed bumps and is less direct and is also travelling towards Cabinteely Garda station, then the tyre marks above also make sense. You can see the tyre marks still in the current google maps view from September 2024.

A composite image showing the memorial site reference above, both of the possible approach routes of the car, completely untouched stop sign and area/estate sign - both solid steel - and the fact the speed bumps are quite a distance away from the final site of the memorial, and both are not large speed bumps. You can see the view for yourself on google maps here.

If they did use Ballinclea road, then the official story makes even less sense: Garda Davern said the car completely lost control and went up in the air, turning and then hitting the women. Yet, the stop sign (black and white pole) and the area name sign, both solid steel, are both completely untouched in the Irish Times photo from March 11th above, with the tyre marks in between, in the perfect line to hit Jacqueline wherever the memorial is. If the car was truly out of control, how did it miss both? How did a loss of control on a final speed bump so far back on ballinclea road allow them the car make it through both steel obstacles unscathed in a straight line?

We can assume the two women were either on the other side of the intersection part of the road, near the memorial tree, or somewhere in between and thrown there by the car, following the impact. If the car did in fact travel down Avondale road, the tyre marks are damning - they clearly show they deliberately drove to the left at the bottom of Avondale road, then through the ‘gate’ of the stop sign and the road area sign, to hit her. Whichever escape route we choose, the official narrative of an accidental impact makes little sense. It seems the details of which route the gang chose have been left intentionally blurry by the media, or the people informing them. There is also the possibility that they had been looking for Jacqueline and traveled on both roads in that search - the timing of the earlier robbery is so unclear from Gardai, the courts and the media that we just can’t be sure from the information available to us.

So in summing up regarding the collision and the verdict of the court of judge Martin Nolan, it seems that Jacqueline and Audrey were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. That wrong place wrong time was at the bottom of Avondale road, when the car that a group of criminals knew to be dangerously defective finally fell apart, and where unfortunately the robbers were inexplicably on the wrong side of the road and speeding fast enough to go ‘up in the air’ as Garda Davern said, despite that speed being difficult to achieve after the previous high speed bump. That, or they came from Ballinclea road and lost control sixty+ metres before the intersection, yet still managed to miraculously travel through a tight space between two steel pieces of road furniture in an out of control car to hit Jacqueline, all without braking or steering. We are to believe that the robbers were for some reason speeding so fast, approaching a roundabout they would have known well being from the area and that they would have had to slow down for, after noisily hitting many speed bumps hard, that they finally went ‘up into the air’ on that last relatively mild speed bump and then collided with the women accidentally. Truly a series of unfortunate events that stretches the imagination.

It must also be stressed again that neither of these routes made sense as a speedy getaway route in dangerously defective car (we are told it was dangerously defective by Garda Davern and the courts), because both have a long series of speed bumps and both take the robbers within less than a kilomentre of the closest Garda station to the robbery. Very little about the choice of robbery target, and either escape route makes any sense. And as you can see, even less adds up regarding judge Martin Nolan’s court’s official version of events at the time of the collision.

The Getaway

Records show that the three robbers fled the scene on foot after the collision. They didn’t split up to keep a low profile as we would expect, and to increase their chances of escape. Instead, at least two of them went to the pub and had a pint, and were seen there ‘looking rattled’ on the CCTV and by staff and witnesses. Was it The Graduate pub, just a hundred metres away? We were never told. They would have been easily identifiable to witnesses there, given it was a quiet Tuesday night. They would possibly have been visibly injured too - three days later we were told by Gardai and the Independent that DNA blood found in the car had cracked the case. The Sun newspaper said one or two of them were spitting blood in the car park of the pub. Yet they still went to a local quiet pub close to the incident site, where they would have stood out and looked extremely injured, bloody, and suspicious, together. Here we had yet more extremely unusual criminal behaviour from a gang who seemed to be doing everything they could to be identified and caught. They made absolutely no effort to escape despite apparently having been speeding unnecessarily fast to escape from the robbery. We were instructed by judge Martin Nolan’s court to believe that suddenly all of their escape instincts had deserted them. It is unlikely that the jury were ever asked to consider if these men were deliberately looking to get caught.

Things gets even weirder. As mentioned previously, one of the robbers, Terry Meegan, was on bail at the time and going to prison for a few years for a separate assault anyway, he didn’t have much to lose. It is not known whether it was Martin Nolan who granted him bail for the previous offence. Apparently, after the collision, he called into a local house and asked them to ‘burn his clothes’.

Did anyone in the prosecution or Martin Nolan enquire as to why Edward Meegan asked a random house to burn his clothes, given he was already in the process of escaping a robbery and probably didn’t have a change of clothes with him?

He hardly had a change of clothes with him. Another very strange detail attached to this case. The people in that house would almost certainly have testified to the interaction in court and identified him. Case closed, no need for any more questions about motive or background.

Here is a summary of the bizarre facts about the gang and their actions throughout:

1. The gang met up in the pub before the robbery, in a general area they knew well, where they lived, where they could be easily identified in the event of the most basic public appeals for information from police or post robbery door to door police canvassing

2. They chose to rob a shop that would have had low takings on the day in question, in an area surrounded by Garda stations, risking their freedom for a guaranteed low-cash reward robbery

3. They carried out the robbery with a car they bought themselves, with the same license plate, instead of stealing one

4. They chose the most difficult road to escape via, in a car they knew was dangerously defective

5. They apparently entrusted their getaway fate to a hugely defective and unreliable low powered car they knew could easily fail them in any kind of police pursuit or at any point during the getaway

6. They were speeding for absolutely no reason approaching a speed bump, having just exited a previous speed bump, before a roundabout where they would have known they had to slow down. They were speeding enough so that the car went ‘into the air’ (serious, inexplicable speed given there was no one pursuing them). It would have been extremely difficult to achieve the speed Garda Davern told us about, given they would have just exited another large speed bump previously, and the car was falling apart - this was no lamborghini

7. Instead of fleeing the scene, for some reason one of the accused went into a house near the collision and asked them to burn his clothes. Beyond belief for so many reasons - the logic isn’t there - he was in the car when the impact occurred, he didn’t have a change of clothes, the people would then have seen his face, whereas if he had fled the scene, his identity would still be hidden. I could go on but I won’t.

8. They stuck together instead of separating after clearly mortally injuring two women in a road collision after a serious robbery, then went to the pub where they could be identified and linked to the robbery in several different ways

9. Had they not chosen one of the routes directly towards the close Cabinteely Garda station, there would have been no loss of control excuse due to speed bumps. They all knew the area, and they very likely all knew were Cabinteely Garda station was given their number of convictions, and any rudimentary planning they might have done beforehand.

One could be forgiven for thinking that these experienced career criminals, with nearly 100 convictions between them, were deliberately ignoring everything they had ever learned in their own criminal lives and everything they had ever seen in every TV show or film that they had every seen about how criminals operate. They seemed to have done everything they could do to make their future court cases as quick and as open-and-shut as possible. Were these Ireland’s dumbest criminals, or was this entire situation actually all about Jacqueline McGovern, and not the robbery? They did everything wrong - unless doing everything wrong was the plan all along.

Conclusion

There seems to be much more to this case that reported. The great Vincent Brown always told us to show and not tell, but I firmly believe children are being left in positions wide open for abuse across Ireland so. Educated speculation follows.

It is possible Jacqueline was targeted here, and that the robbery was a pretext. You may ask why would someone do all of this knowing they would go to prison. If someone is likely to go to prison anyway for some other reason at the behest of the same judicial power it might explain things. And if that power demanded a service in return for temporal or financial reward once the script is followed, it might make sense. All done for the greater good of a certain shared enterprise involving children. It is also possible that a person could be given no choice - ‘kill this person or we will kill you’. This could be where the aforementioned reported rival crime gang taunts came from immediately after the incident, bragging that they knew something no one else did. Could that crime gang be supplying or managing children? As mentioned, human and child trafficking are the most lucrative businesses on earth. There are both financial and compromat-control rewards for everyone involved.

It is probable as far as I am concerned that there is a widespread and organised child sexual abuse network preying on autistic disabled children in Ireland, and in the general area of Killiney/South Dublin -whether this case is related or not. As soon as I learned that a disabled female had been assaulted by one of these robbers, intimidation and abuse were my first thoughts. It is also important that anyone working in the area in Ireland go public with any information they receive as soon as possible, and make family aware of any procedures they have initiated, I will indicate why below.

The mentioned accelerating levels of autism in Ireland and the much publicised and in my opinion lack of meaningful support resources should be ringing alarm bells for everyone. Given the deliberate and damning sabotage of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in Ireland over the past ten years by the likes of Mary Butler TD, it is not unreasonable to speculate that something widespread is being covered up. We have seen many recent cases of this type of thing in this geographic area, and of course it has been happening all over the country. The Jacqueline McGovern case seems to have involved local muscle acting from a distance. Some of those involved possibly acting under duress. In these type of networks there are always members in high and useful places. Like the judiciary, or the police, or in the media organisations that shape the narrative. You can see my Candle of Grace charity child trafficking report linked at the base for another glaring example of how high level networks operate in Ireland.

It is important to note that no one outside of the driver of the car who has been mentioned in this report can be said to be guilty of any other crime - more investigations are needed. God knows who will do them. It is also important to note that if this was deliberate, we do not know what may have happened to the driver himself when he was young, it is just as likely he was an abuse victim himself, given his long criminal history - split mentally at an early age perhaps and now a useful cog. Who knows the hold these senior people or others had or have on him. Who knows if there was other fraternal membership awards for his 33rd conviction.

Possible victims here may have spoken to more than one person involved, reports could have been made to Jacqueline McGovern, or she herself could have confided in someone else who then informed others, and the decision was made to eliminate. It could also have been the case that they wanted one of their own people in the source location (the school), and having someone present in the school who wasn’t part of the network was causing problems. I will show you in the addendum that this last possibility has arisen elsewhere in Ireland in recent years. I will also add more material in the comments section.

Local people need to be made aware of this report, please share the material in general, as spreading awareness of how things work is most important. Also, being vigilant in other settings where vulnerable children - particularly intellectually disabled children - are exposed. You cannot depend on Irish state institutions to fix this problem, I would hope you understand why, given everything judicial and procedural I have outlined above. Official Ireland is clearly beyond rotten to the core in so many ways. The majority of the community that Jacqueline was a part will understandably find the issues and ideas raised in this piece particularly difficult to digest, such is the narrow width of their overton window when it comes to crime and the horrors of institutional-enabled abuse in Ireland. I would urge them to be patient and challenge their beliefs in the institutions of the state, there are plenty of parallels to this case. Their former neighbour Jacqueline deserves an independently-funded inquiry here at the very least.

If there is something more to this case, which I believe there is, it is not an isolated case. This problem is widespread across the world, and definitely widespread in Ireland. In recent decades in Ireland the sexual-abuse-ridden Catholic Church was the sacrificial lamb to make the public glaze over, thinking this type of thing had all been taken care of. It most certainly has not. It is just as bad, if not worse than it has ever had been. Do not look away. Do not assume the mental foetal position and start sucking on your thumb. That is exactly what they want you to do. If you would like to read more similar work of mine in this area, then read about the Candle of Grace children’s ‘charity’ that trafficked 59 children into Ireland in May 2022. I urge the family and friends of Jacqueline McGovern to start asking more questions.

Addendum

I mentioned Nuala Grant above, who was killed on March 5th 2020, five days before Jacqueline. Nuala has been forgotten by the public too. Not anymore hopefully. Again, Covid hysteria time was the perfect time to kill someone and get away with it. We have no updates on that one, and I have tried. Nuala worked with vulnerable abused children, first as a social worker in a child protection team but more recently had worked in play therapy for children in a private capacity. If we have nothing else in this entire interrogation, we at least have the surprising deaths of two people who worked with vulnerable children, killed in circumstances with bizarre hit-and-runs at about the same time, during a great time for public distraction. It was impossible for the man who killed Nuala to have mistaken the path area she was on for a road. There was only one entrance to that path, it is a considerable up ramp with the sea directly in front, the man drove a considerable distance to get to Nuala where she ran regularly and knock her out into the sea, where her body was found. It was a clear night. I witnessed the aftermath of her death personally that evening having been out walking, with at least fifteen or so fire, ambulance, and police vehicles at the corner of St Annes Park and the main bull island entrance (not the wooden bridge). I believe Nuala was murdered. The official explanation with little to no detail - a driver with a health condition - raises more questions than it answers.

Jacqueline McGovern was the second that week. There are more. The pattern is undeniable: people who work with vulnerable children or in mental health settings are being killed in hit and runs. Here are some other examples.

In December 2018 Dr Martin Lawlor, a consultant psychiatrist who by all accounts was a treasure in helping children and who did amazing work, was killed in a hit and run. Another health worker who worked with children, another suspicious death. Who replaced him? A person/member of a fraternal organisation in this position learns all about how vulnerable children are, how close their parenting relationship is, how available the children are for more abuse. They can also help cover up the crimes of connections, or confuse the children more, into not reporting or believing they imagined their experiences. I know from other investigations and people I have interacted that this area is absolutely rife with child abuse - choose your therapist wisely. Incidentally, the judge in the case of Doctor Marin Lawlor, Sean O’Donnaibhain, has previously given a three year suspended sentence to a man who had ch*ld p*rn involving animals. A six month sentence to a man to r*ped a seven year old. Five years to a man who r*ped ten boys. I could go on. A man after Martin Nolan’s heart.

Nuala Kenny, a healthcare worker that seems to have worked with children in mental health recovery, died in a house fire in May 2021 with her partner. There had been more reporting around this incident at the time that has now been removed, I can only find one live story - when I looked at the time there was more. I archived one example that now luckily survives - for some reason someone at the Roscommon Herald removed that story from their website.

Sheila Dunne, a special needs assistant in Cork, was killed in another unusual case in February 2024. Initially reported as a single vehicle crash with another occupant in the car injured, later another woman from another car was arrested - psychiatry reasons cited and proceedings ongoing.

There are more suspicious hit and run deaths I have been researching, some also involving disabled women who were special needs/disabled themselves. There was one last week that seems possibly connected. The others are more difficult to find details confirming occupations.

Please share this work. My work is here on substack and on my website Freepress.ie

Why did the Mayo-based Candle of Grace charity traffic fifty nine children into Ireland in 2022? We still have no answers. Link to story.

Ephesians 5:11
Michael J Sullivan | Absolutely sick of it.