Gardaí seek public help after man shot dead

In a statement issued last night through Shane Rossiter’s uncle, Michael Keating, the family said they were “devastated and shocked by his tragic death” and were finding it hard to come to terms with what happened.

“To get that news this morning is just unbelievable really,” the family said. “He’ll be sadly missed by his family, his parents and brothers and sister. He has a wide circle of friends.”

The family appealed for privacy, saying they were not in a position to answer media queries.

Mr Keating described Mr Rossiter as “a happy-go-lucky chap” who was “very much at ease with his brothers and sisters” and “very family-oriented”. He enjoyed playing football when younger and “just liked having a good time, and wasn’t different to any other person in his age group”.

Family tragedy: Brother’s controversial death

SHANE ROSSITER’S brother Brian (right) died in 2002 aged 14 after he became ill in Garda custody in his native Clonmel.

Brian had been assaulted on Cashel Street in Clonmel on September 9th, 2002, and a day later he was arrested for a minor public order offence on Gladstone Street and taken to Clonmel Garda station.

However, gardaí could not rouse him the next morning when they went to his cell and he was taken to St Joseph’s Hospital in Clonmel but transferred to Cork University Hospital, where he died on September 13th.

A year later, gardaí charged local man Noel Hannigan with assault causing harm to Brian on Cashel Street on September 9th, 2002. The family’s solicitor, Cian O’Carroll, wrote to then minister for justice Michael McDowell and, in June 2005, after repeated lobbying by the Rossiter family, Mr McDowell ordered an inquiry into Brian’s death.

The inquiry, by senior counsel Hugh Hartnett, was published in April 2008 by then minister for justice Brian Lenihan and found Brian was unlawfully detained but found no evidence that he had been assaulted while in custody.

Hannigan was jailed for two and a half years for assault causing harm to Brian while Brian’s parents, Pat and Siobhan Rossiter, had also begun a High Court action against the State for “the wrongful death” of their son.

The case against the State was settled for €200,000 plus costs without any admission of liability by the State, with the settlement being approved by Mr Justice Richard Johnson in the High Court on December 19th, 2008.

It came just a week after an inquest at Cork City Coroner’s Court concluded when a jury returned an open verdict into Brian’s death in accordance with medical evidence that he had died from an extradural haemorrhage due to blunt force trauma to the head.