Background:Seven years after their son's death, Denis and Mary Murphy left the Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday with the verdict they wanted. The jury had found that the 18-year-old had been the victim of an unlawful death, after a sustained assault outside Club Anabel at the Burlington Hotel in August 2000.
Any other verdict would have been "a slap in the face" for the family, their barrister Remy Farrell told the court before the jury retired to consider the case. He said the only reason for the jury to pause in considering such a verdict would be if the assault was in self-defence and this was clearly not the case.
There was an air of finality at the coroner's court yesterday as the court staff said goodbye to the Murphy family and photographers shouted wishes of good luck as Denis and Mary Murphy left the court for the last time.
They first attended the coroner's court on October 19th, 2000, less than two months after their son's death. The teenager had been pronounced dead in St Vincent's hospital just before 5am on August 31st after receiving serious head and facial injuries hours earlier in the fracas.
The inquest was adjourned at the request of gardaí who were investigating the case. After a seven-week trial in 2004, Dermot Laide was convicted of Brian Murphy's manslaughter, and of violent disorder. However, the manslaughter conviction was overturned a year later when the Court of Criminal Appeal objected to the way statements of Laide's co-accused were edited. It directed that he be retried on the manslaughter charge.
Desmond Ryan and Seán Mackey received violent disorder convictions for their part in the incident and both appealed their convictions. Desmond Ryan won his appeal and no retrial was ordered. A fourth accused, Andrew Frame, was acquitted of violent disorder.
The retrial of Laide was expected to begin in April of last year but in a surprise move, the DPP entered a nolle prosequi (meaning no prosecution at this time). It emerged that the State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, had been asked to review some of the medical evidence, as Prof John Harbison, who had conducted the postmortem, was ill.
Her findings differed from his conclusion that the death was due to the swelling of the brain because of severe facial injury. She found that the injuries sustained by Mr Murphy were "relatively minor", and she felt the head injury was complicated by alcohol-induced apnoea.
Dr Cassidy then told an inquest hearing in March that she had not been given key evidence, including photographs of the brain. Having now seen all the evidence, she believed that the cause of death was head injury.
On hearing this, Dublin city coroner Dr Brian Farrell sent the file back to the Director of Public Prosecutions to see if any further charges would be brought. However, in July it emerged that the DPP would not be bringing any more charges.
Unless the family chooses to pursue a civil action, the case of Brian Murphy's death will now be closed. The Murphys did not answer questions on this yesterday but Mrs Murphy's remark "Brian, my love, we have done all we can for you" suggests that the inquest finding may mark the end of their search for justice.
