The inquest into the death of 14 year old schoolboy Brian Rossiter today 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, who was being detained in a cell when he saw a sergeant pull back the hatch to Brian Rossiter’s cell and open the door immediately and 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 around 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 sister’s Sharon Rossiter’s house on Queen Street but he denied kneeing or punching him.
He had 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 and he didn’t think that Brian fell to the ground when he headbutted him, said Mr Hannigan.
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 on 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 but he had stayed out late that night.
She said that 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 that he was taking ecstasy.
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 Noel Hannigan headbutting Brian but also 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," said Ms Rossiter adding that she shouted at Noel Hannigan to stop.
She told Noel Hannigan that her brother, Shane and another friend were in the house and Noel 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 Hanningan lost the head and started to beat him up," she said.
The following morning, Brian’s eyes were fully closed and so swollen that he could hardly see and he was supposed to catch the bus back 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 she said ‘Ok’
She suggested that Brian should see a doctor but he said he would be fine even though he told her several times during the day that 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 he also pulled down his head and kneed him into the face and he also 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 Brian’s head didn’t hit the wall during the assault.
The inquest also heard evidence from Brian’s friend, William Sheehan who told how 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 tomorrow.
