Harrowing details of how a man hanged himself hours after he had knocked down and killed a three-year-old boy in the Co Tyrone village of Donemana on December 26th, 2004, were given at Strabane Coroners' Court yesterday.
Adam Mullan was playing with his Christmas toys on the footpath outside a relative's house at Allen Park, Donemana, when Jonathan Montgomery mounted the footpath in his Peugeot 309 car and drove at his ex-girlfriend, Katherine Hepburn, with whom he had had a row over the paternity of the baby with which she was 30 weeks pregnant.
Montgomery (22), a car mechanic from Raphoe, in Co Donegal, who lived in Donemana, instead struck the young boy. He also seriously injured the boy's mother, Queenie Mullan.
The hit-and-run driver then drove to nearby Riddell's Quarry at Lupin's Avenue. There he was contacted by police officers and family friends on his mobile phone but he ignored their pleas to "stay calm". He then used a rope to hang himself from a crane.
Ms Hepburn told the court that her four-year relationship with Mr Montgomery had ended four months earlier. She said he became violent towards her when she refused to have an abortion. The witness added that, during their relationship, Montgomery had attempted to commit suicide, and once she had cut him down after finding him hanging from a rafter in their home.
Ms Hepburn's father, Robert Hepburn, told the inquest how on the day of the incident, Mr Montgomery's car mounted the footpath and drove towards his daughter. She jumped out of the way and, instead, the car struck the three-year-old boy and his mother.
A friend of Montgomery, Mark Nicholl, said minutes after the accident he was contacted by Montgomery by mobile phone. "He said he was in the quarry and had got a rope. He asked me if the wain was dead. I said he was. He said he could not live with this and could not go to jail," said Mr Nicholl.
Assistant coroner Suzanne Anderson said a postmortem revealed Adam Mullan died from head injuries sustained as a result of a collision. The cause of Mr Montgomery's death was hanging.