Almost seven years after their son Brian was killed, Mary and Denis Murphy will take only cold comfort from yesterday's small victory won on his behalf, Kathy Sheridanwrites
For seven years, Mary and Denis Murphy have not only had to reconcile themselves to the death of their 18-year-old son Brian and the unprecedented publicity surrounding it, but to return time and again to the public forum to seek justice of some kind in his name.
Although charges of manslaughter and violent disorder were laid against four young men after a fracas outside Anabel's nightclub in August 2000, only one of the four, Dermot Laide, was convicted of killing Brian Murphy. This conviction was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal and a retrial ordered. Then the retrial too was dropped by the DPP a year ago following a new interpretation of the original postmortem from the State pathologist, Prof Marie Cassidy.
In short, while Prof John Harbison - who as the then State Pathologist conducted the postmortem but was too ill to attend the retrial - had concluded that Brian's death was due to head injury alone, Prof Cassidy was attributing it to head injury combined with the effects of alcohol consumption. Faced with the suggestion that Brian's death was self-induced and that no killer would therefore ever be named, Mary and Denis Murphy were drawn into the public arena once again, battling for Brian.
Back then, Mary Murphy told The Irish Times that after his discharge Dermot Laide had quoted Prof Cassidy's report as fact, which cleared his name and that of others, when the report was simply her opinion, never tested before a jury.
Denis Murphy remarked that the DPP's decision not to proceed made it very difficult for them to move on. An acquittal following a full hearing of the manslaughter charge against Dermot Laide would have been easier to deal with.
Only in this bleak context could yesterday be said to have been a good day for the Murphy family. Prof Cassidy was now saying plainly that Brian's death "was not due to alcohol; it was due to a head injury and unfortunately he was vulnerable" And how had this unfortunate misunderstanding arisen? The role of alcohol in his death was "taken out of context" in the media, she said, because the retrial had been abandoned and she was never questioned about her conclusions. She noted that the toxicology screen showed that Brian was not intoxicated and the alcohol in his system came from a "few pints".
However, her statement of April 25th, 2006, issued on Department of Justice-headed notepaper, was commendably clear. Out of four possibilities listed - 1) brain swelling, 2) alcohol-induced apnoea, 3) blood inhalation, 4) underlying natural disease, most likely a cardiac complaint - she concluded that it was number 2.
The final paragraph of that statement read as follows: "In summary: this young man died after an assault. The injuries he received were relatively minor and would not be expected to cause his death. It is most likely that his head injury was complicated by alcohol-induced apnoea and acute brain-swelling, resulting in hypoxia/ischaemic brain injury and death."
By contrast, in January 2004, Prof John Harbison told the Circuit Criminal Court that Brian Murphy had died from swelling to the brain due to facial injuries he received after he was kicked in the head. Death had been complicated by the inhalation of blood from three cuts just above the upper lip. Although many of the boy's muscles had been loosened because of the alcohol he had drunk that night, said Dr Harbison, he did not appear to have drunk an excessive amount.
He noted that a part of Brian's brain had been flattened and was bleeding, and that his external facial injuries - which included a deep abrasion on the chin, cuts to his right eye-socket and to his lower jaw on the left side - were due to blows or kicks from a hard object, possibly a shoe or a boot.
Under cross-examination, he said it was impossible to distinguish which facial injury caused the brain to swell; there were detectable injuries to the head but pathologically it was difficult to prove what killed him because there was no footprint or sole print on his head. The abrasions on his face, while severe to the extent that they contributed to his death, did not suggest that he was beaten "black and blue".
At yesterday's hearing, Prof Cassidy conceded that had she been given access to more information, her conclusions might have been different. She heard for only the first time yesterday about bruising to Brian's neck, an injury which she said could potentially "cause sudden collapse and death".
For the Murphys, it all seemed a long way from her original conclusions. Afterwards, they said they were "very, very pleased that the medical evidence has been agreed between all parties".
Prof Cassidy, however, had not withdrawn her original theory entirely. At the hearing, she restated her contention that even though Brian had consumed only a moderate amount of alcohol, "even a minor amount of alcohol can have an effect in certain situations". His death, she reiterated, was "very complicated", and while the cause of his death was head injuries, "there is still a huge question over the mechanism".