The parents of Kate Fitzgerald have described the suicide verdict at her inquest as "tragically wrong" and have vowed to continue their campaign for "justice" for their daughter.
Tom and Sally Fitzgerald said they did not get adequate hearing at last week's inquest and did not get closure.
Last Friday, the jury at Ms Fitzgerald's inquest unanimously agreed that she had died by hanging on August 23rd, 2011.
Body found
The body of Ms Fitzgerald, who worked for the Communications Clinic, was found by her friends at her rented cottage at Harty Place, Dublin 8, after she had failed to turn up for work.
The jury recommended that, as a matter of course, gardaí should take photographs at the scene of any death. Her father, Tom Fitzgerald, has previously expressed concern over aspects of the Garda investigation into her death and questioned whether a third party could have been involved.
Garda intervention
Yesterday, in a statement, the Fitzgeralds said they had a number of problems with the inquest. Ms Fitzgerald's family was not allowed to give their input, they claimed, and they criticised "too much Garda intervention".
They said they also couldn’t hear much of the evidence and that they remained unsure how she had died.
They criticised the level of investigation at the scene of Ms Fitzgerald’s death and also criticised aspects of the evidence given at the inquest.
Of five people on duty at the scene, only one could say at the inquest that a ligature was in place around her neck, they said.
“Meanwhile, the ligature itself, whatever it was, had disappeared entirely, probably destroyed at the morgue.”
At the inquest, coroner Dr Brian Farrell said there was no objective evidence of third-party involvement in Ms Fitzgerald's death. However, the Fitzgeralds said yesterday that evidence to the inquest was "more consistent with someone being dragged to the place of hanging than self-hanging".
The inquest “raised more questions than it answered,” they said. “Kate Fitzgerald did not get justice and her family will continue to fight. We do not want this to happen to any other family.”
