The Coroner's Court: Martina Staunton bows her head and clenches a tissue in her left palm as she listens to Niall Heffernan's account of the day her son died.Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
Niall knew Brian Staunton since they started at secondary school six years before. Only a month before the crash, he recalls, they had gone to an Aslan concert together and afterwards he had stayed the night at the Stauntons' house in Dollanstown.
On Saturday, August 20th last year, he met Brian in the Square at Kilcock, Co Kildare at about 6.30pm. It had been a month of milestones: Brian had turned 17 four weeks ago and just the day before, newly-issued licence in hand, he had bought his first car: a black turbo diesel Ford Mondeo. It cost him €250, he told his friends.
At about 8.30pm they rang Paddy Grehan to see if he was coming into Kilcock. "Half an hour and I'll be there", he said.
"Brian told Paddy that we would meet him up at the banks," says Heffernan.
"Then we drove out to Brian's house. We drove down past the Black Forest and parked the car about 20 or 30 yards from the house. Brian ran to the house and got €50. As far as I knew he told his mother Martina that my father was outside and he was going out to our house. We drove back to Kilcock.
"He was driving at 60 and slowed down at the bridge. He said to me sometime that day that he was going to break Brendan Egan's record of 110 miles per hour. He did not say when he was going to do this and he did not say where."
Back in town, the two headed straight for Centra, where Brian handed Niall €20 in cash. With it Niall picked up six cans of Budweiser for himself and another eight cans of Miller 500mls. They almost forgot about Paddy Grehan's drink, but added another eight cans of Druids 500mls. When Paddy arrived at the canal banks at about 9.30pm, they started drinking.
"Paddy Grehan only drank six cans and was well on," says Heffernan. "I drank four Budweiser 500mls." Sometime after midnight, Paddy and Brian walked down to the chipper, leaving Niall on his own at the banks.
"I fell asleep. I used Brian's jacket as a pillow. At about 4.15am I woke up and Brian was there. Brian went to his bag for the keys of the car and I started fighting with him as I was trying to take the keys off him. I told him he had too much drink on him to drive. He seemed okay, but I didn't want him driving. . . I ran after him and when I reached the railway station the car was gone."
Lisa Brennan stands awkwardly before the court, her wine-coloured school uniform oddly incongruous among the suits and ties around her.
She knew Brian since they were in second year, and it wasn't all that unusual for him to ring her late at night. The first time his name blinked on her mobile that night must have been at about 3.40am. They were in a field, Brian told her, and he was trying to wake Niall up. At 4.20am he rang again and hung up straight away.
"He again rang me at 4.40am and Brian said that he was getting into his car just outside Kilcock. I told him to get out of the car.
"He said that he was going driving and not to be worried and that he would see me the next day and he hung up." Some time after Brian left the canal bank for his car, Theresa and Patrick Fields were awoken by a loud bang that cut sharply through the morning air.
Patrick got out of bed and checked on the children before returning to bed; it was nothing, he told his wife; go back to sleep. As he got into bed, they heard the church bells chime for 5 o'clock, giving way to the sound of voices by the bridge outside. They fetched a torch and went outside. In front of their home, they could make out that a black car had smashed straight into the wall at Meath Bridge, its driver sitting motionless behind the crushed bonnet. Theresa checked his pulse, but there was nothing. "He's gone," she told her husband.
Brian's father, Seán Staunton, who had earlier refused to give a statement to the inquest, stands before the court. He has a point to add. Earlier that Saturday his son had tried to remove the Mondeo's airbag.
Niall Heffernan nods his head. "He reckoned they killed more people than they saved," says Heffernan in a low voice. Could his tampering have caused the airbag to activate prematurely? Mr Staunton asks.
Sgt James Walsh, who inspected the car after the crash, says he found no evidence of that. The impact was severe, he explains; more than severe enough for the airbag to release.
As Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty reads a summary of the autopsy on Brian's body, Martina Staunton leaves her seat and makes quickly for the door, sobbing and unable to listen any longer.
There were large abrasions and lacerations on Brian's face, chest and legs. His chest was badly bruised, his ribcage was broken and his lungs were ruptured. His skull was fractured and he had a ruptured heart.
Having suffered such "massive injuries", Dr Geraghty said, he would not have survived for more than a few seconds.
A toxicology test showed that the alcohol level in his blood was 67mg and 114mg in his urine, which meant that Brian was not over the legal limit when he died.
The jury returned a verdict of misadventure.
• Series resumes next week