Livingstone says Garda treatment left him 'helpless'

JAMES LIVINGSTONE felt like "the most helpless man in the world" on the night he left Malahide Garda station after his wife was murdered, the High Court heard yesterday.

He had been at the Garda station for more than eight hours after he had discovered his wife's body in their Malahide home on December 7th, 1992.

In a letter to his solicitor, he said his wife had been murdered and his home and car had been taken over by gardaí. When he left the station with his son Conor at 3.15am, the upset 20-year-old turned to him and asked: "Where can we go now, Dad?" Mr Livingstone said a "a fair share" of the helplessness was caused by the insensitive actions of gardaí.

Yesterday was the second day of the retired tax inspector's action for damages against the State over the conduct of the Garda investigation into his wife's still unsolved murder. His son Conor and daughter Tara Beauchamp are also taking part in the action.

Grace Livingstone was gagged and bound and shot in the head in the bedroom of the family home at The Moorings, Malahide.

John Rogers SC, for Mr Livingstone, said the court would hear that when his father was being arrested in the family home on March 3rd, 1993, a garda told Conor Livingstone, "we got our man". His father was later released without charge.

During an intensive round of interviews at the station, Mr Rogers said his client was told that his daughter "was a whore in France", that his son was on drugs, that he was "a bluffer and a failure" at work.

Mr Livingstone claimed that he was shown photographs of his wife's dead body and "it was suggested to him that he could look at his handiwork". Mr Rogers said Garda notes did not seem to exist for one-third of the interviews.

The court also heard that Mr Livingstone called to Malahide Garda station on December 18th, 1992, and showed a garda a sheet with the RSI numbers of Det Sgt Cathal Cryan and Det Garda Denis Palmer, two gardaí investigating the case. Mr Rogers said that Mr Livingstone acknowledged that this was wrong. He later apologised to the two gardaí "for snooping in your tax records".

Mr Rogers said the court would hear that Mr Livingstone's daughter Tara was subjected to "a torrent of questions" on the day after her mother's funeral. She was pregnant and became very upset, Mr Rogers said. She later agreed to be interviewed by a female garda at the family home on December 29th but Det Sgt Cryan arrived instead and "broke into a torrent of abuse".

She claimed that he said her father had produced "bad leads" in his list of suspects and this led to Christmas being "ruined" for the suspects and for Det Sgt Cryan. She said that Det Sgt Cryan said that "in 99 per cent of cases" the murderer was within the family and "in this case we are sure it is your father".

Mr Rogers said it was "simply preposterous" that his client had been a suspect in light of information given about the time of death. Mr Livingstone returned home from work at about 5.50pm on the day of the murder. He made the emergency call at 5.58pm.

The Livingstones' next-door neighbour, Anne Egan, told gardaí she heard a noise like "an empty oil tank being dropped on the ground" between 4.20pm and 4.30pm on that day. Another local resident told gardaí that she heard a sound like a banger being let off at about 4.30pm. Mr Rogers said these and other statements were clear indicators of the time of death yet gardaí decided to "pursue a hunch and that dogged and blighted the investigation".

He said it was "simply impossible" to suggest that Mr Livingstone had ample time to kill his wife when he returned home at 5.50pm.

Gardaí had failed to uncover a motive, as there was no evidence of a marital breakdown or of an ongoing dispute. Mr Rogers also said his client would have had to be "insane" to kill his wife in his own house, using his own gun.