Mother appeals for information about son’s gangland assassins

THE mother of a young man brutally gunned down during a gangland assassination, yesterday appealed for information about her son’s killers.

Christine Campbell said gunmen had robbed her of her only child, 20-year-old Anthony Campbell.

The young apprentice plumber from St Michan’s House flats, Dublin, was fixing a radiator in Finglas just before Christmas when a gunman shot him dead during the assassination of a major drug dealer.

Ms Campbell described the phone call breaking the news of her son’s death.

“I just dropped the phone as it was like total disbelief — this is not happening.

“There was still hope in me this had not happened as Anthony was never involved in anything, any crime, as he was just an ordinary child going to work. He was three years into his job, plumbing.”

She said Anthony’s boss was still traumatised over his death.

The reality of her son’s murder only sank in when she identified his body in the city morgue in Marino, north Dublin.

It was “horrific”, the St James’s Hospital worker told RTÉ radio yesterday.

“To think that your child was in there and you’re told you can’t touch him, you can only look.

“I’ve never experienced something so cold in all my life. When I went in ... I knew it was my child there. I still (had) had a bit of hope saying this wouldn’t happen because as a mother when something like this happens ... your head is there, but your whole body shuts down,” Ms Campbell said.

She revealed how the money which paid for her son’s funeral was originally set aside as a present for his 21st birthday this July. “I had a savings scheme. He didn’t know but I was going to send him to Australia. It was a surprise because he didn’t want a 21st party.”

Ms Campbell appealed to anyone with information about her son’s killers to come forward.

“I don’t really know much about gangland but when they kill innocent people they’ve no value for life, to brutally do what they did to my son.

“They can kill each other for all I care but to do that to an innocent child ... what kind of animal would do that?” she said.