A FATHER requested a coroner not to record a verdict of suicide yesterday in the case of his 14 year old son, who was found hanging in the garage at his Dublin home.
His son "had everything to live for" and he believed that his death resulted from an attention seeking gesture following a petty row with his sister, the Dublin City Coroner's Court heard.
The City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, recorded an open verdict, but said that the evidence given at the inquest had shown it was "self inflicted".
The inquest heard that the 14 year old boy was in good spirits on October 9th, 1996.
When he returned from school that afternoon, he had helped to cut a hedge for a neighbour, who had given him £5 for his efforts. The woman recalled that he seemed very happy and had never chatted so much to her before.
Awonian who helped look after the boy and his sister told the inquest that he had received counselling on one occasion the previous month, in relation to the separation of his mother and father.
She described him as "outgoing, with lots of friends and very brainy".
Shortly before 4 p.m. on the day of his death, the woman was in the house with him and his sister. She recalled that after he had gone in the sitting room, a row broke out over a piece of bread which his sister was eating.
In a temper, the girl threw the bread at her brother, making a mess of his school uniform, and the row had then continued upstairs.
The woman eventually told the boy to go and watch television on his own, and she thought he had gone to the sitting room. When she discovered that he was not there, she searched upstairs.
Eventually she found him in the garage hanging by an electrical cord from a metal beam. Numerous attempts to revive him failed.
Dr Farrell had proposed to record a verdict of death by suicide. However, the boy's father stressed that he did not believe his son intended to take his own life.
"He loved football and was due to go playing that evening. He probably decided he was going to frighten his sister. I think he sat up on the old bookcase to give her a fright," he said.