THE INQUEST into the death of 14-year-old schoolboy Brian Rossiter yesterday heard how there was panic in Clonmel Garda station when he was found unconscious in a cell there on the morning of September 11th, 2002.
Martin Leahy told how he had gone to the station to see his son Daniel, who was being detained in a cell, when he saw a sergeant pull back the hatch to Brian Rossiter's cell, immediately open the door, rush out with Brian in his arms and lie him on the floor.
"I saw Brian's face and it was greeny-grey in colour, and I noticed his eyes were sunken in his head - he didn't look very good," said Mr Leahy, adding the sergeant called three times for an ambulance and he saw people running inside and they appeared to be in a panic.
The inquest at Cork City Coroner's court had earlier heard from Noel Hannigan, now aged 28, who told how he had assaulted Brian Rossiter two days earlier at about round 12.30am on September 9th, 2002, when on his way home after drinking 12 or 13 pints. He thought he heard Brian make a smart remark about his brother Mark, so he headbutted him possibly four or five times as he stood on Cashel Street at a side-gate entrance to his (Brian's) sister Sharon Rossiter's house on Queen Street. He denied kneeing or punching him.
He grabbed Brian by the clothes at the front so he was certain that his head didn't jerk back and hit the concrete frame around the gate. He didn't think Brian fell to the ground when he headbutted him, Mr Hannigan said.
He said a woman came out from the house and shouted at him to leave Brian alone, as he was just 14, so he walked home and only discovered later from his father that the young fellow he had assaulted was Brian Rossiter.
Sharon Rossiter told the inquest that Brian had moved to Wexford with their mother some two weeks before, but he had come back to Clonmel on September 6th for the weekend and was staying with her. He had stayed out late that night. She said Brian, who was known as "Krusty" among most of his friends in Clonmel, was drinking and smoking hash at the time, and while some of his friends were taking ecstasy tablets, she didn't believe he was.
She told how she was preparing to go to bed at around 12.30am on the morning of September 9th when she heard three or four bangs of the gate at the side of her house, and when she went out she saw Mr Hannigan headbutting Brian, and hitting him with his hands. "Brian was crippled over and blood was coming from his mouth. I saw Noel Hannigan hit Brian in the face. I never saw anything so vicious - I remember the vicious look on his face." She shouted at Mr Hannigan to stop.
She told Mr Hannigan that her brother Shane and another friend were in the house, and Mr Hannigan moved away, and she brought Brian back inside and gave him a package of frozen vegetables to treat the terrible injuries he had suffered. "Brian was crying - he was badly beaten up - his eyes were swelling up like golf balls and he was black and blue and bleeding from the mouth. There were marks at the side of his forehead - he said Noel Hannigan lost the head and started to beat him up," Ms Rossiter said.
The next morning Brian's eyes were closed and so swollen that he could hardly see. He was supposed to catch the bus to Wexford that evening, but he looked so bad that she rang their mother and told her he looked too bad to get the bus, and her mother said "Okay". Sharon Rossiter suggested Brian should see a doctor, but he said he would be fine even though he told her several times during the day his head was killing him, so she gave him painkillers. "I have never seen black eyes so bad . . . he kept complaining about headaches," she said.
Brian's friend Stuart Sheehan testified that Mr Hannigan headbutted Brian at least three times, but also that he pulled down his head and kneed him into the face, and gave him an uppercut. "Noel Hannigan was drunk and he just flipped . . . he gave Brian a hiding for nothing. Brian's face was full of blood and his eyes were swelling up like big bubbles . . . the only way he could see was by holding his head back and looking down - he had a massive lump above one eye, like a hill," he said, adding that Brian's head did not hit the wall during the assault.
Evidence was heard from Brian's friend, William Sheehan, who said he met Brian at around 5pm of September 9th, when he told him he felt a pain in his forehead.
The inquest continues before a jury of four men and four women today.
