Road accident ‘likely cause of Barron injuries’

TWO British Home Office experts yesterday concluded that injuries sustained by cattle dealer Ritchie Barron in his mystery Co Donegal roadside death nearly seven years ago were most likely the result of a road accident.

Dr Helen Whitwell a consultant forensic pathologist at the Home office since 1988 said "it was very difficult, if not impossible" to think of any combination of weapons that might have caused the injuries she saw in an examination of body parts from Mr Barron some five years after he died in October, 1966.

And together with colleague Dr Philip Lumb, she declared in response to the possibility that the injuries were caused by some form of assault "I think it is highly unlikely".