Mother says Derek a model son who never came to attention of gardaí

Derek O'Toole was "a model son" who was never in trouble in his life, his mother said yesterday.

Christine O'Toole, Shancastle Road, Clondalkin, Dublin, said she was deeply upset that her 24-year-old son had been described in some reports as "known to the gardaí".

She told of how he had twice overcome leukaemia as a child and had successfully undergone a bone marrow transplant.

"Derek was first diagnosed with leukaemia when he was six years old and he gave two years in and out of the hospital struggling with it. When he was eight, he relapsed and had a bone marrow transplant. He recovered from that and came home and he said 'That's it. I don't want to talk about it any more'."

She said Derek "never came to the attention of the gardaí, absolutely never at any stage has he been involved with gardaí either good, bad or indifferent.

"I know people say, 'Sure he's his mother's son, she will say that', but I can honestly say he was a model son. He was loved by everybody. His involvement in life was to look after people and help them and that's the way Derek was. He would never ever touch drugs or have been in trouble in his life."

She added that "he hated needles".

"It does not mean just because we lived in Clondalkin he was a drug addict or a drug dealer or anything else. He was not - far from it."

Ms O'Toole said her family had not been told the driver of the car was a garda. While she had been told a driver had been tested for drink-driving - which had proved negative - she was not told the driver was a garda or that there were other members of the force in the car at the time.

Ms O'Toole said that in addition to his job at B&Q, Derek had worked voluntarily in a local resource centre and with a teen support group called Canteen.

She recalled how he had recently had his legs shaved to raise money for charity and had also painted murals with young people. She wanted her son's name and reputation "brought back the way it should be".