Inquest finds homeless man died after being burnt

A HOMELESS man died days after he was set alight on a Dublin Street, an inquest heard tonight.

A woman, who knew 52-year-old Anthony Gill, said she noticed he had no shoes on his feet as she went to work in Westland Row in Dublin’s south city centre in September last year.

“He told me a fellow he was with poured petrol on his legs and stole his shoes,” Pauline Brennan said, adding he was very upset about it and looked ill.

After she found him sitting on the steps of her workplace, the Royal Irish Music Academy on Westland Row, Ms Brennan said: “He said that fellow I do be with set fire to me, he threw petrol on me last night. So I asked him where, he said down my legs.”

Several witnesses told the Dublin City Coroner that the deceased had told them he had been set alight by another homeless man he often hung around with, who was from Northern Ireland and nicknamed ‘Stumpy’.

Paul Stevenson said on September 4, 2004 as he walked down Westland Row towards the Dental School around 2.45pm to sit an exam a homeless man stepped out in front of him.

Mr Stevenson said the man’s shirt end was on fire.

“He remarked his friend had set him on fire,” he said, adding he started putting the fire out with a sleeping bag.

Mr Stevenson said he approached a second man sitting in the doorway between number 19 to 21 on Westland Row and asked him why he had set the man on fire.

“He had a cigarette lighter in his hand, he just looked back at me and smiled, he seemed in a different world,” he said, adding the man was possibly drunk.

“When putting out the fire I did not get the smell of petrol.”

A friend of Mr Gill, Brian Corr, said he heard a man from Northern Ireland threaten Mr Gill on one occasion.

He said when he visited Mr Gill, who had a problem with alcohol, in hospital he had told him the Northern Ireland man had set fire to him.

Patrick Nulty, who works in St Brigid’s Food Hall on Holles Row in Dublin, said he questioned the man from Northern Ireland who had spent time with Mr Gill on how he had received the injuries.

Mr Nulty said: “He said I tried to set him on fire. At the time he was drunk and I thought he was messing.”