Garda told father teen had taken 16 tablets, inquest told
Pat Rossiter told the inquest at Cork City Coroner’s Court that when he arrived at St Joseph’s Hospital in Clonmel on the morning of September 11, 2002, he saw two gardaí in an unmarked car and a detective standing outside the car.
“He informed me that Brian wasn’t awake and he mentioned then an overdose of ecstasy and an amount of ecstasy,” Mr Rossiter said in his deposition which was read out in court.
Asked by his counsel Aidan Doyle BL about the amount, he said he was told Brian had taken “15 or 16 ecstasy tablets”.
In his deposition, Pat Rossiter said he was informed by a nurse in the hospital that there was an overdose of ecstasy.
“I remember remarking to the nurse, ‘an elephant or a horse couldn’t take that amount of drugs’.”
The nurse then said to him, “we have to go by what the gardaí tell us”.
Mr Rossiter said he later found out that toxicology results showed that no traces of drugs were found in Brian’s system.
Brian Rossiter was 14 when he died on September 13, 2002, at Cork University Hospital, having been transferred from Clonmel.
He never regained consciousness after being found in a coma in a cell at Clonmel Garda Station on the morning of September 11.
Pat Rossiter said yesterday he was called to the garda station on September 10, the night Brian and two friends were arrested on allegations of public order offences.
He denied yesterday that he made a statement to gardaí in the station that Brian was “out of control” or that he said “I know he’ll cause serious trouble in the town if he’s left out”.
He thought on the Tuesday night that spending the night in the station “might teach him [Brian] a lesson”. He was asked at the time if he wanted to see Brian in the cell, and he declined. “I remember saying something like, ‘if I go down there, I’ll kill him’. It was just a figure of speech.”
In his statement, Detective Garda Dan Quinlan said Mr Rossiter was invited a second time to see his son and said: “I’m going for a few pints, I’m not missing that,” before leaving the station.
Under questioning by Aidan Doyle BL, for the Rossiter family, Det Quinlan said he told Pat Rossiter: “We can’t babysit your son for the night,” after which Mr Rossiter said he was going for a few pints.
Det Quinlan said while he was speaking to Mr Rossiter in the station, he allowed him to use the phone to ring his wife Siobhán. During the phone call, Siobhán asked to speak to him [Det Quinlan], and said: “I’m washing my hands of this now, his father is supposed to be looking after him up there, but you can see yourself, what is he doing? Nothing.”
The detective also said that nothing had happened to Brian Rossiter “within my view” in the Garda station.
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