A teenager was found face down in a stream minutes after being chased by gardaí investigating an assault in which a Garda superintendent was struck on the head with a bottle, an inquest has heard.
Jamie Ducey (18) from Abbeyside in Dungarvan died from drowning in a stream near the Sea Park housing estate shortly after midnight on May 15th, 2014.
Thursday’s inquest in Dungarvan into his death heard he had three times the legal driving limit of alcohol in his blood stream at the time of the incidents.
The jury returned a verdict of drowning and death by misadventure.
Coroner Dr Eoin Maughan said “the unintended consequence” is that Mr Ducey ended up in the water.
“Whether it was due to slipping or as a result of alcohol being involved, isn’t quite possible to say,” he said.
Superintendent Michael Leacy said he was in bed sometime after 11.30pm on the night of May 15th when he heard “loud voices” outside his house in Sea Park in Abbeyside, before a bottle was thrown at the front door of the property.
At the estate entrance he saw two men walking towards him. One of them said he was Jamie Ducey and “was aggressive”. The superintendent said he then got hit from behind on the head - “by the other youth” - who then fled.
He said Mr Ducey told him: “I didn’t hit you”.
The superintendent said he was trying to hold on to him when another youth approached and grabbed him from behind, after which Mr Ducey ran from the scene.
He realised he had been hit with a bottle and tried to stem the flow of blood from his head.
Dylan McGovern, a friend of Mr Ducey’s, said he met up with him, Seán Kirby and Mr Ducey’s cousin Elijah at about 5pm on the evening of May 15th. They had cans of beer and went to a field by a school.
They had a few drinks there and then walked to the beach stayed for a few hours and had more drinks. Two girls also arrived.
They left the beach and headed back through the Sea Park estate. “Two or three of the group started throwing bottles at random houses in the estate.”
After the incident with Supt Leacy, he and Mr Ducey started running and when they realised there was no-one behind them, started walking, but then ran again when they saw a Garda van.
They ran towards a concrete pipe which was used to cross a stream between Sea Park and another estate. He saw Mr Ducey climb over a fence into a back garden, and that was the last he saw of him. “I was not aware Jamie had fallen into the river.”
Seán Kirby said in his deposition to the inquest that “Jamie and Elijah were shouting “f..k the law” as they walked through Sea Park. In the months before the incident, he himself was released from prison and Mr Ducey “was smoking heavy weed” and getting paranoid, he said.
Garda Aidan McCarthy said he saw Supt Leacy “bleeding heavily from his head” after he was called to a disturbance at the Sea Park estate. He was in the Garda van and saw “two men” in the Sallybrook estate. “When they saw us they started running,” he said.
He and Garda Mark O’Donovan got out of the van and shouted at the men to stop, but the men kept going and got over a fence above the stream.
After some minutes, over the fence, he saw what he first thought was a plastic bag in the stream but then realised was “a pair of buttocks,” and then heard the other garda shouting “this fella’s head is in the water”.
They pulled him out, onto the concrete pipe above the stream, and realised it was Mr Ducey.
Garda Laoise Moran said she was also called to the scene and saw “what appeared to be someone lying face down in the water,” with his pants and underwear around his knees.
Assistant state pathologist Dr Michael Curtis told the inquest his findings were consistent with death by drowning. There was no evidence of assault or restraint.
Lisa Jones, Mr Ducey’s mother, said in her deposition to the inquest that he was the eldest of her three children and had just turned 18 and moved back with her after living elsewhere for a short time.
He had been arrested three or four times in relation to public order offences, drinking in public and “possession of weed” and had received cautions. On the night in question, he called her at about 10.40pm to say he was “drinking a few bottles” and would be back later. He did not sound drunk.
“I said to him, ‘take care’. That was the last think I said to him. He was a good young fella, he had a heart of gold and was a big softie. Jamie didn’t deserve this at all. He is sorely missed by us all.”
After the inquest, the dead man’s father Michael Ducey said he was “a lovely guy, a gentle soul, loved his soccer, loved his music. Just a lovely all-round lad”.
He had to identify his son’s body in the hospital morgue. “It was unreal, unreal. The vision will never leave me. To see your first-born child like that, unreal.”
He advised teenagers that it was “a bad idea” to be going out drinking and smoking drugs. “There’s not much for the young fellas these days, that’s why they end up doing the things that they do. They should look after themselves. Things can happen out of nothing.”