GARDAÍ WHO arrested James Livingstone abjectly failed to observe the duty of care which they owed him when he was "interrogated abusively" by officers as part of a "negligent investigation", his legal team argued in the High Court yesterday.
However, during an afternoon session dominated by detailed legal argument, Shane Murphy SC, for the Attorney General, argued strongly that previous case law said officers had no such duty of care to either a victim or a suspect.
Grace Livingstone, whose murder remains unsolved, was discovered by her husband James in the bedroom of the family home at The Moorings, Malahide, Co Dublin, on December 7th, 1992. She had been gagged and bound and was shot in the head.
John Rogers SC, for Mr Livingstone, said it was clear to senior officers that he could not have killed his wife and they had in fact identified another "very real" possible culprit.
The lack of gunshot residue on his clothing should have eliminated him from suspicion, he said.
There was similarly no "pungent smell" of gunshot residue in the room where her body was found, indicating that some time had elapsed between the shooting and the discovery of the body.
Mr Rogers also said gardaí had identified a group of "charity collectors" - some of whom had criminal convictions for theft-related offences - who had been operating in the area on the day of Mrs Livingstone's murder.
One in particular fitted the description of a young man whom a number of other witnesses had seen in the area at or about the time of her death.
This man, who was said to be a user of drugs and who was believed to have stolen from houses during previous collections, was rated "highly" as a suspect by another investigating officer, Mr Rogers added.
In her evidence yesterday, a neighbour of Mr Livingstone, Margaret O'Sullivan, described hearing a "bang" which she thought was children with bangers at about 4.30pm. Mr Livingstone returned from work to find his wife's body at 5.50pm.
"It was after Emmerdale Farm, that I had looked at . . . it finished at half past four and I went directly out to the garden," Ms O'Sullivan said.
However, she acknowledged during cross-examination that in a sworn statement, which was read back to her by gardaí, she had twice said the time was "between 4.30 and 5pm".
"To me it was 4.30 because that's when the programme ended and I went out," she added.
Mr Livingstone was arrested on March 3rd, 1993, and held for two days on suspicion of having a firearm. In November 1993 he pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a firearm and received a fine.
Mr Rogers said his arrest at this time was aimed at inflicting "emotional suffering" and was "intended to break him psychologically".
Mr Livingstone is pursuing an action for damages against the State over the conduct of the Garda investigation into his wife's unsolved murder.
During yesterday afternoon's session, Mr Murphy, for the Attorney General, said all of the claims at hand were not "indivisible" from one another, adding that there was no precedent for officers to have a "duty of care" as argued by Mr Livingstone.