Pubdate: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
Source: Sunday Independent (Ireland)
Copyright: 2000 Independent Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.independent.ie/
Author: Geraldine Niland

DEAD GIRL WAS ON GARDA 'AT RISK' LIST

There is mounting pressure for a public inquiry into the Garda's handling 
of the missing teenager, Kim O'Donovan, who was found dead in a Dublin 
city-centre guest house last Thursday. The teenager had been missing from 
the care of the Eastern Health Board for four weeks and a bench warrant had 
been issued for her arrest.

Under Garda investigative procedures, Kim O'Donovan was an ``at risk'' 
missing person. However, their failure to trace the missing teenager has 
called into question the level of priority given to her disappearance, as 
well as the execution of the High Court bench warrant.

The Sunday Independent has learned that gardai did not use their computer 
system, Pulse, to circulate details of the missing teenager but used telex 
to notify gardai stations nationwide. The investigation into her 
whereabouts was handled by officers from Wicklow Garda station.

According to the Garda Press Office, the garda who took the report then 
forwarded details to the Wicklow divisional headquarters in Wexford. From 
there, notification was sent to the Missing Persons Bureau at Garda 
Headquarters in Dublin. The Crime and Security Branch was responsible for 
the handling of the bench warrant for the teenager's arrest.

The Garda Press Office could not confirm how long this process of 
notification took, but already this weekend, the Minister for Health 
Micheal Martin has asked for a report from the Health Board and the gardai 
on the matter.

Kim O'Donovan was the adopted daughter of Ronnie and Maura O'Donovan. The 
couple adopted her when she was 18 months old. Kim had been placed for 
adoption by her natural mother when she was four months old. She lived with 
her adoptive parents and their two sons, Andrew and Stephen, in the 
affluent Dublin suburb of Dalkey. She grew up in a ``normal, loving, caring 
family environment'', but she had problems, according to a statement issued 
by her parents.

``Kim was always disturbed. From an early age we consulted with her 
teachers, child counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists in relation to 
Kim's problems,'' they said.

As a result of professional advice, Kim was committed to the care of the 
Eastern Health Board in 1997 and kept in residential care at Newtown House 
in Wicklow up to July 28 this year.

The teenager was due in court on July 31 to have her care order extended 
but she absconded two days earlier. She wrote a heartfelt letter to Mr 
Justice Peter Kelly, begging not to be sent back. She asked that she be 
placed with a foster family and said that the reason she had absconded was 
that a promise of a foster family placement had been broken.

Before being committed to care, she had run away to England. At Newtown 
House, a high-support unit for troubled teenagers, she said she had become 
drug-free. She told the judge that she was ``capable and intelligent'' and 
no longer needed to be in care.

``I am no longer a danger to myself or others. I am no longer in need of 
high support and would like to start rebuilding my life, please,'' she pleaded.

But unfortunately for her she no longer has a life. Kim died, seemingly 
alone and friendless, of a heart attack brought on by a drug overdose in a 
city-centre B&B.
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