The report on the circumstances of the arrest and detention of a 14-year-old schoolboy found unconscious in a Garda station is likely to be published within four to six weeks, an inquest hearing into the boy's death heard yesterday. Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent, reports.
Cork city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said she had learned from the Department of Justice that the Brian Rossiter inquiry report by senior counsel Hugh Hartnett had been received by the Minister for Justice last week and was likely to be published within four to six weeks.
Brian Rossiter was found unconscious in a cell at Clonmel Garda station on the morning of September 11th, 2002, following his arrest at about 9.30pm the previous night on suspicion of having committed a public order offence in the town. He was taken to St Joseph's Hospital in Clonmel but moved to Cork University Hospital where he died two days later on September 13th.
A postmortem by State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy revealed that he died of injuries due to blunt force trauma to the head.
Yesterday Dr Cullinane confirmed to lawyers representing both Brian Rossiter's parents, Pat and Siobhán, and An Garda Síochána that she planned to hear the inquest into Brian's death on December 4th. She said she expected the hearing to last several days.
Earlier, solicitor for the Rossiters, Cian O'Carroll, told The Irish Timeshe was concerned that Mr Hartnett's report on the circumstances of Brian's arrest and detention would not reach any definitive finding on what happened him because it was too narrowly focused.
Mr O'Carroll explained that the family had been critical at the outset of the hearing that the inquiry was structured as a disciplinary hearing under the terms of the Dublin Metropolitan Police Act into the behaviour of a number of gardaí rather than a more broadly focused inquiry.
"I don't think the inquiry took on any investigative role - it was happy to sit back to allow the case to run as a plaintiff/defendant action, with the family of Brian Rossiter in the role of plaintiff rather than going out and investigating the matter, as I think they were asked to do.
"I think the criticism made at the outset by the Rossiters that the inquiry was focusing on the issue that Brian was assaulted rather than asking what actually happened to him will prove to be the reason why the inquiry will not come to any conclusion what happened to him.
"We raised that criticism at the start but in the end the family agreed it was better to be in than out - if the family wasn't there, there was nobody to tell the other side of the story," he added.