It was the specific injury to Mr Richard Barron's forehead that led her to conclude that he had died in a road traffic accident, the Deputy State Pathologist told the Morris Tribunal yesterday.
Dr Marie-Therese Cassidy was giving evidence on the third day of this module of the tribunal in Donegal.
She said that scuff marks on the skull, combined with a Y-shaped laceration to the forehead, was a very unusual injury. "If I was not trained in forensic pathology I would probably not realise there was something abnormal there," she said.
This injury was combined with an injury to the back of the head, just behind the left ear, which occurred before the forehead injury.
These indicated a blow to the back of the head, causing a fracture to the skull. It would appear that the blow drove the head forward and into the road. The impact caused a second fracture to the skull. The injury to the forehead, combined with the scuff marks, were consistent with the head being dragged along a rough surface like the road. Injuries to Mr Barron's hands were consistent with being dragged along a road.
"There is no evidence that he was involved in an assault," she said. "It is far more likely that his injuries were as a result of a road traffic accident involving a side-swipe from a projecting part of a vehicle, followed by being drawn along the ground for a short distance."
The fact that a piece of skin with hair attached was found later on the road, and that a piece of Mr Barron's scalp was missing, was typical of a face being dragged along the road and a bit of the forehead gouged out by its surface. She surmised he was hit by something like the side mirror of a lorry.
Asked if he could have been struck by a car, she said the absence of a full set of photographs of the body meant there was no evidence of injuries to his knees, which there would have been if he was struck first by the bumper of an ordinary car. It was possible he was struck from behind as he was kneeling or crawling.
Asked by Mr Peter Charlton SC, for the tribunal, if the hole in Mr Barron's scalp could have resulted from an assault, she replied: "I thought long and hard about that. It would only be possible with a scalping-type attack from a hatchet or a sword. But that would not be accompanied by the grazing injury that occurred here."