A homeless man died days after he was set alight on a Dublin street, an inquest heard tonight.
A woman, who knew 52-year-old Anthony Gill, said she noticed he had no shoes on his feet as she went to work Westland Row in Dublin's south city centre in September last year.
"He told me a fellow he was with poured petrol on his legs and stole his shoes," Pauline Brennan said, adding he was very upset about it and looked ill.
After she found him sitting on the steps of her workplace, the Royal Irish Music Academy on Westland Row, Ms Brennan said: "He said that fellow I do be with set fire to me, he threw petrol on me last night. So I asked him where, he said down my legs."
Several witnesses told the Dublin City Coroner that the deceased had told them he had been set alight by another homeless man he often hung around with, who was from Northern Ireland and nicknamed `Stumpy'.
Paul Stevenson said on September 4th, 2004 as he walked down Westland Row towards the Dental School around 2.45pm to sit an exam a homeless man stepped out in front of him.
Mr Stevenson said the man's shirt end was on fire. "He remarked his friend had set him on fire," he said, adding he started putting the fire out with a sleeping bag.
Mr Stevenson said he approached a second man sitting in the doorway between number 19 to 21 on Westland Row and asked him why he had set the man on fire. "He had a cigarette lighter in his hand, he just looked back at me and smiled, he seemed in a different world," he said, adding the man was possibly drunk. "When putting out the fire I did not get the smell of petrol."
A friend of Mr Gill, Brian Corr, said he heard a man from Northern Ireland threaten Mr Gill on one occasion.
He said when he visited Mr Gill, who had a problem with alcohol, in hospital he had told him the Northern Ireland man had set fire to him.
A statement from Christopher Flanagan, now deceased, which was read to the court, said the Northern Ireland man said someone had given him small white tablets which had caused him to burn the shirt off Mr Gill. "He told me he didn't know whether he was coming or going when he did it," Mr Flanagan's statement said, and the man said he was just messing with him.
A brother of Mr Gill, Francis Gill, told the inquest in a statement that the family had not been in contact with him for around five years since his mother had died and the home in Dublin had been sold.
Geraldine McAuliffe, a nurse working for homeless charity, Trust, where the deceased had visited for around five years, said she noticed the burns on Mr Gill on September 7th, 2004 and sent him to St James's Hospital.
Prof Marie Cassidy told the inquest Mr Gill died on September 17th, 2004 from acute respiratory distress complicated by hospitalisation for body burns. She said he had third degree burns over five per cent of his body, including his chest and back.
Garda Paul Murphy from Pearse Street Garda Station told the inquest he had interviewed the man nicknamed `Stumpy' on October 14, 2004 as a result of an investigation into the incident on September 4, 2004. Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, adjourned the inquest to next February and issued summons for several material witnesses including a Francis McGrinder and Roberto Rascio who had failed to appear.
PA