Animosity to garda stemmed from arrest

John Carthy: If the deep animosity John Carthy felt towards the gardaí was the seed that led to their fatal confrontation in April 2000, it stemmed mainly from two incidents in August and September 1998, the Barr report makes clear.

One related to the confiscation of his shotgun and the second to his wrongful arrest, detention and interrogation for the burning of a GAA mascot - a wooden effigy of a goat - and the transporter used to move it.

Justice Barr's report lays out the background to that intense distrust and to the personality of the 27-year-old, whose life ended so tragically.

Described as a somewhat diffident and sensitive young man, he was a member of the Abbeylara gun club. He owned a Russian-made double-barrelled shotgun, which he maintained in good condition.

Gardaí moved to confiscate his gun while they investigated a claim by an employee at a Garda station that he was mentally unstable and that she feared for her safety and that of her husband, who employed Mr Carthy but had had a row with him.

According to the Barr report, claims had also been made that he threatened to shoot children who occupied the court where he played handball, a sport he excelled at. When a garda went to get the gun while they investigated the subsequently unsubstantiated claims, he told Mr Carthy that all licensed guns in the area were to be taken into Garda custody for inspection, but did not mention the allegations.

He accepted the explanation, handed over his gun but was "upset and distressed" when he discovered the subterfuge.

When he got a message to go to the Garda station a month later, he thought it was about the return of his gun. But he was arrested, falsely accused of setting the goat mascot alight, and according to the Barr report, probably suffered physical abuse.

Mr Carthy's sister Marie described him as a "beloved son, brother, nephew, cousin, neighbour and friend" and great character. "He had a fantastic sense of humour" and was very intelligent, gentle and hard-working.

He loved football and handball, enjoyed socialising with his friends and was the life and soul of every occasion, she said. "Like so many people worldwide, John did experience depression."

Psychiatrists described him as a rather sensitive, insecure, diffident young man, probably relatively easily upset by any kind of emotional or physical trauma.

Until the death of his father in 1990 from cancer, he had had an unexceptional history. The elder of two children, he lived most of his life near the village of Abbeylara in Longford, apart from time at agricultural college and a period working in Galway. His bi-polar disorder, with its highs and lows, first manifested itself some years after his father's death.

His doctors said he never got over the death and continued to blame himself for it in some way.

He gave up agricultural studies after further bouts of depression and worked as an unskilled labourer.

He had a particular attachment to the old family home, which was to be demolished and replaced with a modern dwelling, because it was where his grandfather and father had both lived.