Mother pleads for witnesses after death of son in Spain

A WOMAN whose son died in mysterious circumstances in Gran Canaria has pleaded for witnesses to come forward.

Daniel O’Callaghan, from Rathmines in south Dublin, was found unconscious last May with severe head injuries in a laneway beside his Spanish holiday apartment.

The 24-year-old never regained consciousness and died two weeks later in hospital. His mother, Maeve O’Callaghan, believes some of the other Irish holidaymakers staying at the Playa Del Ingles resort may have seen something.

“A friend of a patient of mine came to me and said she had been there at the same time and had heard someone who had witnessed an attack,” she said.

Speaking on RTÉ radio yesterday, she was strongly critical of the investigation by the Spanish police.

The scene in the laneway where Daniel O’Callaghan’s body was found at 4am on Saturday, May 13, was not preserved for forensic examination. The police did not discover any witnesses to the suspected assault and only examined Mr O’Callaghan’s bloodied clothes at the family’s request.

Mr O’Callaghan had only arrived in Gran Canaria with three friends the previous day. On Saturday, they had visited a number of bars, but the friends lost contact with the 24-year-old at 2.30am, presuming he had returned to the apartment.

When they reported him missing the next day, the police brought them to a hospital where they identified the man found in the laneway as Mr O’Callaghan.

“He was on a respirator in intensive care and they told us it was possible that he might recover, might die or might recover, terribly impaired. He never regained consciousness, never responded in any way. It’s good in a way because he never had any pain, I think,” said Ms O’Callaghan.

She believes he could not have been knocked down by a car or motorcycle because of the narrowness of the laneway where he son was found. It is surrounded by three apartment blocks popular with Irish holidaymakers.

Mr O’Callaghan’s death is the third serious incident there in recent years.

Last year, John Michael Daly, 23, from Cork, was found dead after falling from a fourth-floor balcony.

In 2001, a 29-year-old Belfast woman suffered two broken arms, broken ribs and a burst liver after a fall from the sixth floor of her Green Fields apartment, but survived after emergency surgery.