Keith Barry says burgled grandfather's death not properly investigated and reveals inquest details

Ellen O'Donoghue

Keith Barry has spoken of the trauma of his grandfather’s sudden death in 2009.

Paddy Barry’s house was burgled and the 82-year-old later died due to injuries sustained during the incident.

On a recent episode of The Grief Pod podcast with Venetia Quick, Keith Barry discussed what he believed happened.

“We were told by the guards it was a number of people broke his front [door] down and they beat him up and he died three or five days later. It gets all blurry in your head," he said.

“That’s a real traumatic experience because it’s not a death that anybody should have to deal with in a family because it’s not just the shock of him dying, it’s the shock that he didn’t die of natural causes, and then you’re thinking you’ve got to catch these people, and I got noisy in the media because I wanted to catch these people.”

“I was really, really close to my grandad as well and was absolutely very angry.”

Inquest challenge

Barry revealed that the State pathologist at the time said in the autopsy that all the pensioner’s injuries were consistent with a fall, “as if nothing had ever happened in the house".

He admitted on the podcast that at the inquest into his grandfather’s death, he challenged the State pathologist.

“I won the challenge, he said he couldn’t stand over his own statement, because he was told by somebody – he couldn’t tell us who the somebody was – that Paddy Barry had locked himself in his front living room and had no interaction with the burglars.

“I said, ‘Where’d you get that information from?’ and he said ‘I don’t know’, so he couldn’t stand over it and then he had to rewrite his own report,” Barry told Quick.

“Then the jury came out and they came out with a statement to say that the incident that happened in Paddy Barry’s house led directly to his cause of death, and they had to get legal advice, that was the strongest wording they could put in.”

“We saw him, he was beaten black and blue, a broken arm, his head was hit against the ground or against the wall, we don’t know, and again all the way through, 16 years on, no one is caught.”

“The wilder thing is, the guards went quiet. Like the guards asked me to go quiet out in the press because they said I was affecting the course of their investigation. The second I went quiet we never heard from the guards ever again.

“It’s not an open case so they just didn’t bother, well, it’s supposed to be an open case but nobody’s bothering to investigate it but in my mind, Paddy Barry was murdered, end of story. He was murdered and therefore [they] should’ve been chasing that.”

Barry added, however, that although those responsible have never been caught, he had decided not to let it consume him.

“You grieve, then you’re shocked, then you get angry, and then you realise this is consuming me for years, and then you have to make a choice again, you’ve to go ‘Am I going to let this consume my life now?’ and some people do, and they look for justice, but that becomes their life, and I thought ‘this can’t become my life and I can’t let it consume me’,” he said.

An Garda Síochána said in a statement to BreakingNews.ie that “gardaí in Waterford conducted an investigation into a burglary that occurred in 2009.

“A number of arrests were made in relation to this investigation. A file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions and no prosecution was directed," the statement said.

The family recently got a new Garda liaison officer, Barry revealed on the podcast, because he got “a bit noisy like I sometimes do,” but he described it as “PR containment” from the guards.

“I’m not anti-guards,” he said, “I’m talking about the incident that happened to my grandfather was not properly investigated and the Waterford gardaí didn’t bother calling us for years and now apparently we’ve been given some new garda liaison officer.”

He said the liaison officer told his cousin that he could call him if he wanted to.

“Why hasn’t that guy called me?” Barry asked, saying he was “mouthy” about it because he is in the media, but also because he was close to his grandad.

Barry said he had still not found closure.

“It’s always going to be an open wound, but all you can do is stitch the wound, and you get angry again, and then you stitch it again.”

“He should never have met that end. He was super healthy. He used to walk seven miles three days a week at 82,” he tells Quick.

Waterford graffiti

He further revealed on the podcast that somebody in Waterford had been spray painting information at various locations in Waterford, including at the hospital, about his grandfather’s death.

Barry was sent photographs of the spray paint before its removal.

“I informed the guards, and again, I’m like, you don’t have to be Inspector Clouseau to look at the cameras in Waterford Regional Hospital, see who went in and spray painted that."

He believes the case should be brought to the cold case division within An Garda Síochána.

“It should be reopened, it should be reinvestigated, and the fact is, if you thought it was dead, well all of a sudden there’s stuff being spray painted all over the place, so somebody’s feeling guilty.”

When BreakingNews.ie contacted gardaí about the graffiti, they said they were aware of and conducted an investigation into reports of graffiti to a building in the Ardkeen/Dunmore Road area of Waterford city, and allegations made regarding the burglary investigation that occurred in 2009.

“Gardaí conducted an extensive investigation in relation to these allegations. This matter was fully investigated and the allegations made were of no assistance to the burglary investigation.”