McDowell meeting will halt hunger strike, vows man
Peter Preston, 52, from Donnycarney, alleges a cover-up over a serious assault on his daughter, Danielle, in a pub in 1999.
The 19-year-old secretary suffered 25 stitches to her left cheek after she was struck in the face with a glass by another female.
“It changed her completely. She became a completely different person after the incident,” Mr Preston said yesterday.
A successful prosecution was brought by gardaí but Mr Preston is not satisfied with the police investigation of the incident or the 18-month suspended sentence handed down by the courts to the female culprit.
He has alleged a criminal conspiracy and has called on Justice Minister Michael McDowell to re-open an investigation into the entire affair.
“The minister must give me an undertaking to see this to the very end to ensure that justice is done, and seen to be done,” he said.
Mr Preston’s local TD, Independent Finian McGrath, who has raised the issue in the Dáil, called on Mr McDowell to meet him before it is too late.
“He is protesting about the way the justice system has failed him and his family. He is now very weak and has to stay in his tent,” said Mr McGrath.
The former labourer hasn’t eaten since late May but drinks water and sugared tea. He claims to have lost four stone in that period.
He sleeps overnight in the tent but says revellers often wake him up by kicking or punching the canvas.
He has a small blackboard resting on the footpath on which he writes the number of days he has maintained the hunger strike.
A doctor regularly visits to check his heart and blood pressure.
Mr Preston added: “I’m willing to put my health, my marriage, my family, on the line to get justice.
“If we have no justice, no democracy, no freedom in this country, what did the men of 1916 die for?”
Mr McDowell sent an aide to speak with Mr Preston yesterday but has given no undertaking to meet with him.
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