‘He’s still part of our family and always will be’
THIS Christmas, as she always does, Liz Hughes will buy some very special gifts she can’t deliver.
They’ll be for her eldest son, Stephen, who died 10 years ago when the makeshift den he and other local children made to play in was set on fire while he slept inside.
The schoolboy’s inquest was adjourned at the coroner’s court for the umpteenth time this week as gardaí explained to the coroner once again that their investigation into his death was still ongoing.
Liz knows the routine and how it repeats her heartbreak, so she didn’t attend. “I used to go every time but now the guards ring me and say it’s coming up for mention but there’s no need to be there and that’s fine, because it gets harder and harder every year, especially this time of year.
“We go up to the graveyard and we talk about him and think about him,” she says of the family’s own routine for including Stephen in their Christmas. “We buy little presents for him. He’s still part of our family and always will be.”
Stephen Hughes Connors was 12 when he died in an incident that still hangs heavily over the neighbourhood in Dublin’s Tallaght where he was born and where his family continue to live.
The Hughes Connors were already coming through a major upset at the time. Stephen’s dad, Billy, had suffered a brain injury in an assault the year before and his recovery was slow and frustrating.
He and Liz were just back from a trip to Lourdes when an excited Stephen announced he was going to sleep over at his cousin’s house nearby. Liz initially told him he couldn’t but she relented on seeing his disappointment.
Sometime that evening, August 31, 2001, however, Stephen got sidetracked and ended up sleeping in the hut made from wooden pallets and old carpet that local children used as a hideaway just around the corner from his home.
What happened at 5.20am the next morning is chillingly caught on security camera from a nearby house whose owner worried about antisocial behaviour at an adjacent empty shop unit.
A man approaches the hut — barely visible on the edge of the screen — walks away, returns again, leaves again and shortly afterwards, there is a puff of smoke.
The hut exploded in flames and Stephen was caught inside. A young friend with whom he’d been sharing the adventure got out but could do nothing to help Stephen.
It was presumed to be an accident — a candle tipped over or some misadventure with a lighter or matches. Boys that age have more energy and inquisitiveness than sense. It was a tragedy but just one of those things.
But the discovery of the CCTV footage swiftly turned it into a murder inquiry and Liz and Billy had another layer of devastation added to their grief.
There was confidence initially that the culprit would be caught but that soon turned to disquiet as the Garda investigation seemed to stall.
Sean Crowe, then a local councillor and now a TD, was one of those who began calling for an independent inquiry.
“There was criticism at the time of the way things were handled. There was a belief locally that the guards knew who it was — a guy involved in major drugs activity in the area — yet the people who were being questioned didn’t look anything like the man on the CCTV. There were all sorts of stories and rumours going around about why he wasn’t arrested.”
Some of the less elaborate theories in circulation about the cause of the fire ranged from the mild — that the hut was drawing attention to an area the dealer used to transact business so he decided to get rid of it and was reckless as to whether anyone was inside, to the deeply disturbing — that he deliberately targeted it, thinking he had another child whose father owed money for drugs.
Persistence in keeping the story alive paid off and a cold case team of detectives was put on the investigation in 2008. Prior to that, the main development had been in 2003 when a witness emerged who said he had stayed quiet before due to death threats, and the chief suspect was arrested.
But the man was not charged due to insufficient evidence, a situation Liz hasn’t given up hope of rectifying.
“In the beginning, I think people had their own ideas of who was responsible and they thought it would be straightforward. They didn’t realise the evidence that was needed to bring someone to court.
“I also believe there was fear at the time that held people back but it’s ten years now and things have changed. Maybe they have kids of their own now and they understand how I feel.”
Superintendent Eamon Dolan of Tallaght hasn’t given up hope either and believes the answers lie locally. “Some person out there knows something and for whatever reason didn’t feel able to come forward.
“But those reasons may not exist any more or they might have a different view now. We would appeal to that person to think about it again and come and talk to us.”
The Hughes Connors have recently set up a Facebook page, Support The Justice 4 Stephen Campaign, in the hope of re-energising the appeal.
“It’s to keep it in people’s minds and hopefully somebody who might know something would come forward,” says Liz. “Maybe they think it’s only something small but it could be very significant to us — it could be the last piece of the jigsaw.”
In ways, time has stood still for the family since Stephen died. The vacant shop beside where the hut was built and where they erected a memorial headstone is now derelict and Sean Crowe has been trying to have the area revamped.
“It’s an eyesore and there’s stuff being dumped there and it takes away from the memorial. The building should be turned into some sort of amenity for children.”
Liz, too, is trapped between trying to move on without letting go of her precious memories of Stephen. She runs a creche now and puts all her energies into caring for the children there as well as loving her own at home.
Stephen had a younger brother and sister when he died and two more brothers were born since his death.
“They’ve grown up knowing Stephen through photographs and what they’re told about him. I’ve always told them they have a big brother who’s in heaven and will always look out for them.
“But we have to look out for Stephen too. He was the best, easiest-going child, so adorable, so good and he was taken so cruelly. We need to get the man who did that to him.”
