James Livingstone case

Interesting case started yesterday where James Livingstone is suing the State for wrongfully mounting a campaign against him following his wife’s murder. It’s not too far removed from some recent high profile cases where there’s a death and then the Gardai let it be known (through their pals in the media) who killed the wife and then there’s an assumption that colours their investigation and every media report on the incident.

I know a small bit about this case from local hearsay and everyone would tell you the same shite about “the Gardai know it was the husband, they just can’t make it stick.” This is something that happens far too often in this country and it needs to be stopped. I don’t really know that much about the actual facts of this case but I do know that the Gardai spent far more time telling all and sundry what they thought happened, instead of actually investigating it.

Anyway here’s the Irish Times report on the first day of the case:

Garda had ‘irrational fixation’ that man killed wife

ALISON HEALY

AN ACTION against the State by James Livingstone, whose wife Grace was murdered in Malahide more than 15 years ago, has heard a claim that garda developed “an irrational fixation” that he had killed her.

The retired Revenue tax inspector began his action for damages in the High Court yesterday, arising from the conduct of the Garda investigation into the unsolved murder.

Mr Livingstone (70) is joined in the action by his daughter Tara Beauchamp (37) and son Conor (35). Grace Livingstone was bound, gagged and shot in the family home at The Moorings, Malahide, on December 7th, 1992.

The alarm was raised by Mr Livingstone, who arrived home from work at about 5.50 pm and found her body in their bedroom.

John Rogers SC for Mr Livingstone told Mr Justice John MacMenamin that the loss by Mr Livingstone of his lovely wife was “a tragic event as it stood . . . but it became worse, judge, because, against all the evidence, garda became fixated that James Livingstone had killed his wife”.

Mr Rogers said “there was no evidence for that and, regrettably, this fixation blighted the investigation that was to ensue”.

The fixation caused garda “to openly assert” that Mr Livingstone had killed his wife. His client was “pilloried” as a murderer, was pressed to declare his guilt when he was detained for questioning in March 1993 and was “abused” while he was detained.

He said Mr Livingstone had been wrongly arrested and a search of the home was “a wrongful search”. These events had “magnified the loss” and Mr Livingstone had still not recovered. “He may never do so.”

For Conor and Tara, who accompanied their father in court yesterday, the loss of their mother had been “compounded” by the wrongful attribution of guilt to their father for so long. Ms Beauchamp was living in France when her mother was killed. Conor Livingstone was living at home and working in the city centre.

The court heard that he only learned about his mother’s death when he walked past Malahide Garda station on his way home from work late on December 7th and bumped into a relative.

Mr Livingstone is claiming damages for alleged false imprisonment, abuse of legal process, abuse of power and/or misfeasance of public office, conspiracy and other matters.

Mr Rogers said his client was “a distinguished servant of this community and of the State”. He was assigned to Revenue’s new special inquiry branch in 1979 and became a senior inspector of taxes in 1981. At the time of his wife’s death, he was involved in two major anti-tax evasion projects. One involved hydrocarbon fuel smuggling while the other related to bogus non-resident accounts.

The couple, who had married in 1968, had a life that was “abundant in its joy” and “idyllic”, with Mr Livingstone’s non-work life revolving entirely around the family. Mr Livingstone was a senior figure in the FCA and enjoyed outdoor pursuits such as shooting, fishing and sailing. Mrs Livingstone loved gardening and flower arranging.

The court heard that Mr Livingstone and his son last saw Mrs Livingstone alive when they left for work at about 8.20am on the day she died. He picked up his colleague Art O’Connor, who lived locally and continued into town.

He left the office at about 5pm and brought Mr O’Connor home, before arriving at his house shortly before 6pm.

In a statement, Mr O’Connor said he was “absolutely satisfied” that Mr Livingstone had not sneaked home, killed his wife and returned to drive him home from work. Mr Rogers said Mr O’Connor would say that the garda “gave the impression they weren’t getting the answers they wanted” when he gave his account of the events.

Information offered from several people about the sighting of a young man in the area on the day of the murder did not appear to have been comprehensively followed up, Mr Rogers said.

Philip McGibney, who had been topping trees in the neighbourhood, told garda he saw a young man at the Livingstones’s front door at about 4.30pm on the day of the murder. Another man gave a similar description of a man speeding away from the area at about the same time. Several schoolchildren also made statements about the young man.

From early on, Mr Livingstone believed the murder related to his work and gave garda a list of suspects, including some people living in Border areas.

Fooking piggy fookers can go fook the fook.

I, like Rock have heard the rumours about this case and have had in depth chats with a local retired detective who is convinced ‘he did it guvnor’. As chance would have it, I am also going out for a pint in a while with a man who used to know him well. I’ll ask the hard questions, folks.

Interesting stuff from yesterday.

Livingstone says Garda treatment left him ‘helpless’
ALISON HEALY

JAMES LIVINGSTONE felt like “the most helpless man in the world” on the night he left Malahide Garda station after his wife was murdered, the High Court heard yesterday.

He had been at the Garda station for more than eight hours after he had discovered his wife’s body in their Malahide home on December 7th, 1992.

In a letter to his solicitor, he said his wife had been murdered and his home and car had been taken over by garda. When he left the station with his son Conor at 3.15am, the upset 20-year-old turned to him and asked: “Where can we go now, Dad?” Mr Livingstone said a “a fair share” of the helplessness was caused by the insensitive actions of garda.

Yesterday was the second day of the retired tax inspector’s action for damages against the State over the conduct of the Garda investigation into his wife’s still unsolved murder. His son Conor and daughter Tara Beauchamp are also taking part in the action.

Grace Livingstone was gagged and bound and shot in the head in the bedroom of the family home at The Moorings, Malahide.

John Rogers SC, for Mr Livingstone, said the court would hear that when his father was being arrested in the family home on March 3rd, 1993, a garda told Conor Livingstone, “we got our man”. His father was later released without charge.

During an intensive round of interviews at the station, Mr Rogers said his client was told that his daughter “was a whore in France”, that his son was on drugs, that he was “a bluffer and a failure” at work.

Mr Livingstone claimed that he was shown photographs of his wife’s dead body and “it was suggested to him that he could look at his handiwork”. Mr Rogers said Garda notes did not seem to exist for one-third of the interviews.

The court also heard that Mr Livingstone called to Malahide Garda station on December 18th, 1992, and showed a garda a sheet with the RSI numbers of Det Sgt Cathal Cryan and Det Garda Denis Palmer, two garda investigating the case. Mr Rogers said that Mr Livingstone acknowledged that this was wrong. He later apologised to the two garda “for snooping in your tax records”.

Mr Rogers said the court would hear that Mr Livingstone’s daughter Tara was subjected to “a torrent of questions” on the day after her mother’s funeral. She was pregnant and became very upset, Mr Rogers said. She later agreed to be interviewed by a female garda at the family home on December 29th but Det Sgt Cryan arrived instead and “broke into a torrent of abuse”.

She claimed that he said her father had produced “bad leads” in his list of suspects and this led to Christmas being “ruined” for the suspects and for Det Sgt Cryan. She said that Det Sgt Cryan said that “in 99 per cent of cases” the murderer was within the family and “in this case we are sure it is your father”.

Mr Rogers said it was “simply preposterous” that his client had been a suspect in light of information given about the time of death. Mr Livingstone returned home from work at about 5.50pm on the day of the murder. He made the emergency call at 5.58pm.

The Livingstones’ next-door neighbour, Anne Egan, told garda she heard a noise like “an empty oil tank being dropped on the ground” between 4.20pm and 4.30pm on that day. Another local resident told garda that she heard a sound like a banger being let off at about 4.30pm. Mr Rogers said these and other statements were clear indicators of the time of death yet garda decided to “pursue a hunch and that dogged and blighted the investigation”.

He said it was “simply impossible” to suggest that Mr Livingstone had ample time to kill his wife when he returned home at 5.50pm.

Garda had failed to uncover a motive, as there was no evidence of a marital breakdown or of an ongoing dispute. Mr Rogers also said his client would have had to be “insane” to kill his wife in his own house, using his own gun.

Was wathcing Scannal on Monday night and they had the case of Veronica Guerin on it. Watching John Gilligan be acquitted from the Central Criminal Court for her murder, I found myself asking what I would have done if I had been the judge.

The guy ordered the hit. He did it but the evidence isn’t there. Also if he gets out he is dangerous. Do you abandon laws of natural justice to put this fucker away for life when you know in your heart of hearts that he is guilty?

I am not calling it either way but thought I would throw it out there…

The judges ended up doing both - not guilty of murder but nailing him on a drugs charge…

Livingstone’s counsel says garda failed in duty of care
JOHN DOWNES

GARDA WHO arrested James Livingstone abjectly failed to observe the duty of care which they owed him when he was “interrogated abusively” by officers as part of a “negligent investigation”, his legal team argued in the High Court yesterday.

However, during an afternoon session dominated by detailed legal argument, Shane Murphy SC, for the Attorney General, argued strongly that previous case law said officers had no such duty of care to either a victim or a suspect.

Grace Livingstone, whose murder remains unsolved, was discovered by her husband James in the bedroom of the family home at The Moorings, Malahide, Co Dublin, on December 7th, 1992. She had been gagged and bound and was shot in the head.

John Rogers SC, for Mr Livingstone, said it was clear to senior officers that he could not have killed his wife and they had in fact identified another “very real” possible culprit.

The lack of gunshot residue on his clothing should have eliminated him from suspicion, he said.

There was similarly no “pungent smell” of gunshot residue in the room where her body was found, indicating that some time had elapsed between the shooting and the discovery of the body.

Mr Rogers also said garda had identified a group of “charity collectors” - some of whom had criminal convictions for theft-related offences - who had been operating in the area on the day of Mrs Livingstone’s murder.

One in particular fitted the description of a young man whom a number of other witnesses had seen in the area at or about the time of her death.

This man, who was said to be a user of drugs and who was believed to have stolen from houses during previous collections, was rated “highly” as a suspect by another investigating officer, Mr Rogers added.

In her evidence yesterday, a neighbour of Mr Livingstone, Margaret O’Sullivan, described hearing a “bang” which she thought was children with bangers at about 4.30pm. Mr Livingstone returned from work to find his wife’s body at 5.50pm.

“It was after Emmerdale Farm, that I had looked at . . . it finished at half past four and I went directly out to the garden,” Ms O’Sullivan said.

However, she acknowledged during cross-examination that in a sworn statement, which was read back to her by garda, she had twice said the time was “between 4.30 and 5pm”.

“To me it was 4.30 because that’s when the programme ended and I went out,” she added.

Mr Livingstone was arrested on March 3rd, 1993, and held for two days on suspicion of having a firearm. In November 1993 he pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of a firearm and received a fine.

Mr Rogers said his arrest at this time was aimed at inflicting “emotional suffering” and was “intended to break him psychologically”.

Mr Livingstone is pursuing an action for damages against the State over the conduct of the Garda investigation into his wife’s unsolved murder.

During yesterday afternoon’s session, Mr Murphy, for the Attorney General, said all of the claims at hand were not “indivisible” from one another, adding that there was no precedent for officers to have a “duty of care” as argued by Mr Livingstone.

The best thing about yesterday’s evidence was the reference to ‘Emmerdale Farm’. It shows how long ago the incident took place - we’ve been ‘Emmerdale’ for ages now.

You seem to be submitting a fair assessmemt of this case Rock…well done !!!

I’ve just copied and pasted from the newspaper coverage Baby.

What does Cathal Cryan have to say on this?

This case was settled on Wednesday evening but neither side made public what the exact settlement was. Livingstone was interviewed afterwards and he said the Garda focus should be redirected towards finding out who killed his wife. Certain reports that his son was pointing at Livingstone at the time and shouting, ‘he did it, he did it’ have been rejected by most media personnel present.

Now that this case has been concluded, I can pass on a character reference of JL without prejudicing the TFK jury. A source of mine, who used to work with Livingstone, has confirmed that he was a bit of a loon, post widowering. A regular lunchtime pinter, afternoons in the tax office were often spent trying to avoid the call into his office, as the bottle(whiskey) was produced and the encouraged upon whosoever might have been there. Sounds like a nice way to pass a work afternoon to me. He was also overly proud of his gun alledgedly, being allowed to carry one due to his FCA rank, I believe.

Can’t believe I wasn’t at home for this as it would have been a dynamite story round our way…

Bandage’s report is slightly inconclusive I find…Is it definite he ‘won’.
Two things though, threatening guards with their RSI no’s is a bit stupid if understandable if they insisted you did it…
Secondly, a bit weird he agreed not to say anything about the settlement if he won. Surely after all these years, you’d want vindication in the harsh world of Fingal hearsay, if you won…
Any thoughts, gents?

Yeah it was a bizarre conclusion. I read the newspaper report the following day and didn’t even copy and paste it in here because I couldn’t follow it. I haven’t a clue what happened to end it all. Nowt in the Fingal Independent about it either.

I heard a couple of stories about the lad alright from local sources too. He’s certainly something of an oddity but that explains why the garda reckoned he did it, it doesn’t actually suggest he did do it.

Where I think the garda erred was in stipulating from the very start that Livingstone did it himself. The evidence appears to be fairly conclusive that he couldn’t have done it. So whatever suspicions they had should have been channeled into figuring out who did it instead and why.

The settlement wasn’t publicised but in his interview afterwards Livingstone made reference to the outcome now proving that the Gardai accepted he didn’t kill his wife. But there was nothing further to substantiate that. I see in today’s papers he turned up at the Battle of Gorse Hill hearing in the court yesterday and sat down in the public gallery to have a look at proceedings.

Read Jimmy Guerins book Justice denied if you want to know more…I knew a woman who worked with him in the Rev and she told me that he was not adverse to threatening staff with his gun. One particular female was threatened because he had gone guarantee for her on a bicycle in Gearys of Stephens Green and she had fallen behind on her payments. Another source I have in the OPW said that when he went investigating, he would wreck offices, and they were sent to do the repairs. I have lots of other antidotes on this clown, but he wouldn’t be convinced now even if new evidence emerged.

[QUOTE=“Rocko, post: 83762, member: 1”]Yeah it was a bizarre conclusion. I read the newspaper report the following day and didn’t even copy and paste it in here because I couldn’t follow it. I haven’t a clue what happened to end it all. Nowt in the Fingal Independent about it either.

I heard a couple of stories about the lad alright from local sources too. He’s certainly something of an oddity but that explains why the garda reckoned he did it, it doesn’t actually suggest he did do it.

Where I think the garda erred was in stipulating from the very start that Livingstone did it himself. The evidence appears to be fairly conclusive that he couldn’t have done it. So whatever suspicions they had should have been channeled into figuring out who did it instead and why.[/QUOTE]
There is a huge story behind this case. He is a complete Walter Mitty. I know people who live beside him. So many questions remain unanswered by JL…etc. The tape used to truss up his wife was never traced. Why had he got a small scissors in his jacket pocket after being arrested. His excuse was ‘any good gentleman should carry a scissors for manicuring his nails’’. Why would the IRA knock off his wife?. That in itself wouldn’t stop any Rev or Gardai investigation. Why did he launder his handgun by leaving it into a garda station during a gun amnesty, knowing that these weapons were then sent to the Irish Army, whereon he promptly sequestrated it ‘clean’ for his own personal use as a member of the FCA. He was known to take his son to the Malahide Castle domain and practise with his handgun which he kept in a shoulder holster. He wasn’t popular locally, and was known to check the tax discs of neighbours cars. He was hated in the Rev, nobody wanted to work with him. After one investigation he was on, he got a tax free lump sum on the recommendation of a TD in the Dail which was read into dail records. Why was Cathal Crean not consulted by the subsequent investigators who went in to have a lookback at the case (this was after JL instigated proceedings against the state.) In my opinion, the gardai went in to do a whitewash to try and save the state money. Why did livingstone when interviewed by Tom Mcgaughran on RTE news say on the anniversary of the murder ‘’ The blueies cant pin it on me"…Remember too that back in that day the Guards didn’t even have forensic suits, never mind shelters. Why did JL ring the 999 service and say ‘’ I have an injured woman in my house’’…Why did he insist in staying the house on the night of the murder instead of going to a hotel as requested by the Guards. What became of the jacket that disappeared from the hallway of the house which was seen by the investigating guards but vamoosed after the murder…Look, read Jimmy Guerins book if you can get it, he interviewed JL…Its fascinating. Im my opinion, there is no doubt he was the one…Who else would kill such a woman…and for what. Sex, Money,Hate, Love,not likely… Its just another Ian Bailey case where the guards screwed up from the getgo…

dungeon with this shit and ban this weirdo

[QUOTE=“Rocko, post: 83750, member: 1”]Interesting case started yesterday where James Livingstone is suing the State for wrongfully mounting a campaign against him following his wife’s murder. It’s not too far removed from some recent high profile cases where there’s a death and then the Gardai let it be known (through their pals in the media) who killed the wife and then there’s an assumption that colours their investigation and every media report on the incident.

I know a small bit about this case from local hearsay and everyone would tell you the same shite about “the Gardai know it was the husband, they just can’t make it stick.” This is something that happens far too often in this country and it needs to be stopped. I don’t really know that much about the actual facts of this case but I do know that the Gardai spent far more time telling all and sundry what they thought happened, instead of actually investigating it.

Anyway here’s the Irish Times report on the first day of the case:[/QUOTE]
Is it the wife killing you wanted stopped? Or the dodgey Garda investigations?

Ohmygod, ohmygod, you’re the son, aren’t you? :eek:

Guarantor on a bicycle?