'No third-party' involvement in jail methadone death, inquest told

A GARDA investigation into the death of a man who had methadone poisoning while in custody found there was no “third-party involvement” in his death, an inquest was told yesterday.

Dwayne Foster (24), who was methadone dependent, died in the early hours of March 7th, 2006, after being detained at Coolock Garda station in north Dublin.

He was being questioned about the shooting of mother-of-one Donna Cleary, who was shot dead at a party in Coolock.

He had been administered methadone twice while in custody: shortly after 11am and again between 8pm and 9pm on March 6th by Dr Peadar Kirk.

A postmortem by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis found Foster had died from methadone intoxication.

Chief Superintendent John McGee told the Dublin City Coroner’s Court yesterday he was satisfied as a result of his inquiries that no “third-party methadone” was involved in the death of Foster. He was also satisfied there was no third-party involvement.

Coroner Dr Brian Farrell ruled that details of the Garda investigation could not be opened to the jury. As a result, solicitor for the dead man’s family Michael Finucane and other counsel could not question the chief superintendent.

But Mr Finucane did question gardaí who were present at the station on the night of Foster’s death. Sgt Thomas Walsh, who was duty officer that night, told the inquest he gave Foster Rohypnol, a sleeping pill prescribed by his doctor at 11.40pm. He checked Foster at midnight and every half hour by looking through the cell door hatch and putting on the lights. At 1.50am Foster asked him to turn off the full light and a night light, he said. He checked Foster again at 2am by putting the lights back on. Foster did not react.

Sgt Walsh said he assumed he was asleep. After his break, he checked again and when Foster didn’t move he fetched the key to his cell. Foster was lying on his right side with his face to the wall, and had fresh blood coming from his nose. There was no movement from his chest. The sergeant called Garda Ian Darcy and they both tried to revive the young man before calling an ambulance.

Neither of the men gave Foster mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Giving evidence yesterday, Garda Darcy said he performed chest compressions.

At 2.50am when Vincent Savage, the first paramedic to arrive, entered the cell, “nobody was working on ”, he told the inquest. Foster had a bluish colouring. Mr Finucane asked if the cyanosis was an indication of how long he had not been breathing.

Mr Savage agreed the colour could be time related, but could also be affected by the temperature of the room. He didn’t recall if Foster was cold to the touch, but felt he would have remembered if he was.

He confirmed that gardaí did not tell him Foster had been given methadone.

Paramedic Jonathan Forbes agreed he had filled out a report sheet and recorded Foster had been “last seen” by gardaí at midnight. Mr Forbes said he meant the last time gardaí had seen him active and moving was 12 o’clock. He assumed he had been checked every half hour after that.

The inquest continues today.