Dutch court dismisses Achill family’s appeal

Dutch court dismisses Achill family’s appeal


Sister ‘extremely disappointed’ with outcome

Anton McNulty

THE family of missing Achill man JP Grealis may take their search for him to the European Court after the Dutch Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal to re-open the police file into his disappearance.
The Grealis family made their appeal in May for the case to be re-opened before a three judge panel in the Dutch Court of Appeal but last week the court dismissed the complaint. The family’s legal team had argued that there are enough lines of enquiry which the police have not followed to order a reinvestigation but the Court agreed with the District Attorney that there is not enough evidence to suggest that JP had been the victim of a crime.
The news came as a bitter blow for the Grealis family who have fought a constant battle against the Dutch authorities to re-open JP’s case, who went missing in October 2008.
His sister Helen said the family were extremely disappointed with the court’s outcome but stressed they would not give up on finding out what happened to their brother.
“The Court dismissed the complaint, because the Court – like the District Attorney – believe that there is not enough evidence to suggest that JP has been the victim of a crime. They believe that there is a possibility that he has had an accident or that he has left/disappeared by his own initiative. Also they believe that further investigation after all this time will probably not give more insight in what has happened to him.
“Of course we will not give up but we need to review the possibility of further legal actions outside of the Netherlands but we do not have any hindsight on this as of yet,” she said.
JP, from Tonragee, Achill went missing in the Dutch town of Breda in October 2008 while looking for work and there has been no sign of him since. The Grealis family have been very critical of the local police’s handling of the case which was officially closed in July 2012.
Helen still believes that a proper investigation has not been conducted by the police which may give clues as to what happened to JP and that is their main concern and grievance.
“Personally we feel that although there is not enough evidence to suggest a crime, the initial investigation was so incomplete that we do not have this evidence as such - basically if they investigated what they should have at the time we would then have the evidence to prove something was amiss as we have outstanding items we want checked out but cannot do so without the assistance of the police,” she said.