Minister Shatter and Commissioner Callinan should both resign in disgrace

Lucia O’Farrell appeared on TV3′s Tonight With Vincent Browne Show last night to discuss the case of her son Shane who was killed by a hit-and-run driver outside Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan on August 2, 2011

The man who struck Shane was Zigimantas Gridzuiska, 39, from Lithuania.

He was acquitted of dangerous driving causing death and he was given the choice of eight months in jail or to leave Ireland within 21 days. He chose the latter with appalling consequences.

Later, Senator David Norris said he had contacted Justice Minister Alan Shatter about the case. and was told the family might consider counselling.

Lucia O’Farrell: “Shane was 23, he returned from college and he was to take part in a triathlon and, after having something to eat, he went out on his bike, a beautiful summer’s evening on the second of August 2011. When he hadn’t returned, Jim, my husband, and I went out and found that he had been killed in a hit and run. He was our only son, our lives had been destroyed but he was tossed on the road and left to die alone on the road in a hit and run. We were told it was a crime scene. They had nobody at the time for it.”

Vincent Browne: “And you were told that he was carried on the roof of the car for quite a distance?”

O’Farrell: “That subsequently came out in the court because they found fabrics of this clothing on the roof bonnet and windscreen of the car.”

Browne: “Right and the person who almost certainly was involved in this was a Lithuanian and he had a track record, prior to then, tell us a bit about that.”

O’Farrell: “He had come into the country, apparently he was known to Interpol. He was up for convictions for aggravated burglary, theft, road traffic offences, damage to property…”

Browne: “That was outside the country, before coming here?”

O’Farrell: “Yes, yes, and then he had 40 convictions in total on the evening of the second of August, when he killed Shane.”

Browne: “That was in Ireland?”

O’Farrell: “No, in Lithuania, Northern Ireland and here.”

Browne: “Right.”

O’Farrell: “He was well-known to the PSNI, he had served custody in the south of Ireland for heroin, he had a long criminal history, he was on a peace bond, he was on a suspended sentence, north and south of the Border, he was driving a defective vehicle, he was uninsured, he had falsified his documents since coming into the country…”

Browne: “And wasn’t there an instance where he was given a suspended sentence, subject to good behaviour, and then he was convicted of another offence and the judge in the second case was unaware of what had happened previously. The gardai failed to tell them.”

O’Farrell: “Well the reason Shane is dead is because of total Garda failure. In January 2011, seven months before Shane was killed, this man had received a ten-month sentence and it was adjourned for a year in the Circuit Court, for him to be of good behaviour with permission to bring him back at any stage if he reoffended, but four months after that decision in the Circuit Court, and I saw that order, he was up for five consecutive days of theft in another court room and the judge was unaware that he was to be brought back and gave him a four-month suspended sentence. The guards should have brought him back when he reoffended. So he now, in May, got a four-month suspended sentence and went on to kill our son. He legally shouldn’t have been on the road.”

Browne: “Right. And subsequent to the killing of your son there were further bizarre…”

O’Farrell: “Yes there were plenty of opportunities for the guards to prevent this happening. On the 6th of July, three weeks before he killed Shane, this car was killed up by the Drugs Squad, he was well known to them and he was found with a substance and charred tinfoil. Apparently this man snorted his heroin. He would put a lighter under the tinfoil and he snorted his heroin and instead of confiscating or seizing the car and preventing him driving this man was allowed continue to drive and hold a driving licence, which a person snorting heroin behind the steering wheel of a car is not conducive, because side effects of heroin…”

Browne: “OK, and in the hours before the incident, resulting in the death of your son, the gardaí were also involved?”

O’Farrell: “He was pulled up again an hour before he killed our son because the number was known to the Drugs Squad. He was found with two other Lithuanian heroin addicts, the driver was uninsured, they took them out and searched them, this car had no NCT certificate, it was driven by an uninsured driver and they were waved on. Within an hour our son was dead.”

Browne: “Subsequent to the death of your son, there were further bizarre twists to the story?”

O’Farrell: “Following killing Shane?”

Browne: “Yes.”

O’Farrell: “Yes, well when this man killed Shane, he never touched the brakes, he fled the scene, he concealed the car in bushes five kilometres away, he returned to his Lithuanian wife and informed her, this is signed on oath, ‘I’m after knocking someone down, I don’t know who’. And they both went to bed. Nobody called an ambulance because, if she had called an ambulance he would have been tested within three hours for drugs and alcohol and there’s a three-hour window there so she went to bed, no charges were ever brought for her, for failing to call an ambulance, withholding information. If we lived in Northern Ireland that is 18 hours but we only have three here. While we’re preparing a funeral for our only son, this man there’s a special sitting in Dundalk Court and, at that sitting, the guards fail to ask for the suspended sentence to be activated, he was on a four-month suspended sentence three months earlier?”

Browne: “This is because he was charged again in connection with incident involving the death of your son?”

O’Farrell: “He..this was two days following the killing of our son. There was a special sitting in Dundalk Court..”

Browne: “Was this related to that issue or to another issue?”

O’Farrell: “No, to killing my son. He was taken to a special sitting in Dundalk Court and, at that court sitting, the guards failed to ask for the suspended sentence he was on three months earlier in May, he got this four-month suspended sentence, they failed to ask to have that activated. I mean what do you have to do to get a suspended sentence activated? He was after killing surely they would say we would want to get this sentence activated. They failed to bring that to the judge’s attention. And they also failed to object to bail, he was after killing and bail should have been objected to. So they didn’t do that. So this man was out and about but two weeks after killing Shane, he’s caught with heroin again, a month after killing Shane he’s driving around again uninsured, no tax and six weeks after killing Shane, he’s supposed to sign on. The judge said, this is as the gardaí are preparing a big file for the DPP, this man is ordered by the court, when he killed Shane, was to sign on in the garda station three times a week on bail of €500. Six weeks after killing Shane, while on bail for killing him, this man is arrested in Craigavon [Co. Armagh] and spends two weeks in custody there and nobody notices when he fails to turn up at a garda station and sign on for two weeks. In fact that only came to light a year later when the family requested an Interpol check and I had a conversation with the Constable, I said ‘Constable that’s impossible you had him for two weeks” and he said “Ms O’Farrell, why are you so sure?”, I said: “He was signing on in the garda station, he killed my son, he was signing on three times a week, he said: ‘well I’m sorry to disappoint you but we had him here for two weeks”. And so I was wrong, Vincent. We asked the DPP later, before it had gone to court, to object to him getting bail again, in view, on grounds that he had left the jurisdiction which is very serious and no-one had noticed and he was coming back to the same garda station that failed to monitor him but they refused. To highlight this to the judge would be to show that the guards had failed in their duty.”

Browne: “He was never convicted of dangerous driving causing death, he was convicted of merely of leaving the scene of an accident.”

O’Farrell: “The summary offences, yes – failing to remain at the scene, failing to call the services and failing to keep his vehicle at the scene and driving a defective vehicle.”

Browne: “How do you feel about the Garda conduct in relation to this whole affair?”

O’Farrell: “My son is dead because of them. We’ve irrefutable evidence to that. We wouldn’t be having this conversation now. There was gross misconduct and corruption and following it to mop up, to cover up.”

Later, Senator David Norris tells how he contacted Justice Minister Alan Shatter about the Shane O’Farrell case.

David Norris: “I actually wrote, with all the information that we had, to Alan Shatter, and he deflected it. He said he had no responsibility, that meant I couldn’t…. it was quite a nice letter but, he said he had no ministerial responsibilty there, which meant I couldn’t raise it as an adjournment matter and he suggested that they get counselling. Now I think think that’s not an adequate… in the light of what we have had told to us this evening – most of which would have gone to Alan Shatter’s office – now he may not have dealt with it personally, I have no vendetta against Alan Shatter, but I think that was lamentable – and that’s why it’s necessary to have a public inquiry.”