{"id":185716,"date":"2025-12-11T00:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/185716\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T00:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T00:13:08","slug":"dad-of-teen-who-died-in-dublin-storms-out-of-inquest-calling-it-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/185716\/","title":{"rendered":"Dad of teen who died in Dublin storms out of inquest calling it ‘a joke’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dad of Brandon Buckley stormed out of his son’s inquest calling it ‘a joke’ amid disputes over whether he had formally identified his son to gardai.\"BrandonBrandon Buckley – may he RIP(Image: rip.ie)<\/p>\n

The father of a young man who died in Dublin city centre in tragic circumstances two years ago stormed out of an inquest<\/a> into his son\u2019s death amid claims that he had not formally identified his son to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Brandon Buckley (18) of Edenmore Gardens, Raheny died at the premises of the Swooshed sneaker store that he operated on Abbey Street Upper, Dublin 1 on October 27, 2023.<\/p>\n

At the opening of an inquest into his death at Dublin District Coroner\u2019s Court<\/a> on Wednesday, the deceased\u2019s father, Alan Donoghue, denied that he had provided any statement to garda\u00ed about the identity of his son.<\/p>\n

Coroner Aisling Gannon was unable to read the findings of a postmortem on how Mr Buckley died into the record after she was forced to adjourn proceedings following an angry outburst by Mr Donoghue in which he branded the inquest \u201ca joke\u201d and claimed that \u201csomeone is after f**king up.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a death notice placed by Mr Buckley\u2019s family on the RIP.ie website stated he had died \u201ctragically due to the pressures of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Mr Donoghue was called to give evidence, Inspector Amanda Flood had applied for a six-month adjournment of the inquest after informing the coroner that a file on the Garda investigation into Mr Buckley\u2019s death had been forwarded to the DPP.<\/p>\n

Garda John Bellew also gave evidence that the identification of the deceased had been made to him by Mr Donoghue at the premises on Abbey Street Upper.<\/p>\n

As the court registrar was preparing to read Mr Donoghue\u2019s deposition into the record, however, the witness interrupted to state he never recalled making any statement to garda\u00ed<\/a> in relation to his son\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The coroner pointed out that garda\u00ed do not necessarily take a statement as they seek to be \u201cthe least intrusive\u201d as possible to family members at a very distressing time.<\/p>\n

Mr Donoghue admitted he was at the scene but claimed he had identified his son to garda\u00ed before he had died and told them that Brandon was in the premises.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing was said after that,\u201d he added. He also said he had been told not to go to the morgue.<\/p>\n

Mr Donoghue said he was not disputing that it was his son but claimed proper procedures were not followed.<\/p>\n

Asked by Ms Gannon after a number of interruptions if he wanted the court to investigate his son\u2019s death, he replied: \u201cFor the fourth time, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coroner replied that the inquest could only proceed if the court could be satisfied about the identification of the deceased and if Mr Donoghue accepted that he had engaged \u201cat a distressing time\u201d with garda\u00ed in relation to identifying his son.<\/p>\n

She also expressed bafflement as to why the witness had become \u201caggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a series of tetchy exchanges, Mr Donoghue told the coroner that he thought the inquest process would be carried out to the letter of the law but had just discovered it was not.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was not formally identified by anyone in his family as far as I know,\u201d he remarked Mr Donoghue described the situation as \u201chighly unusual.\u201d He continued: \u201cI don\u2019t know what is going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coroner reminded him that other members of his family, which included Brandon\u2019s mother, Denise and three of the deceased\u2019s grandparents, might want the inquest to proceed.<\/p>\n

Ms Gannon also stressed that garda\u00ed do not engage in a formal identification process in relation to a deceased young man with family who are distressed, upset and agitated.<\/p>\n

In doing so, she said garda\u00ed were trying to cause relatives the least distress and prevent them from further distress rather than \u201cseeking to exclude them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coroner said she did not know where they could go if there was no \u201cunderstanding\u201d about the identification of the deceased.<\/p>\n

Mr Donoghue complained that statements about his son\u2019s identification did not contain important details like time and date which he claimed made them \u201ctechnically illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the coroner observed that she did not think progress could be made at the hearing, Mr Donoghue replied: \u201cIs that it? Can I get out of this box?\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI haven\u2019t a clue. I\u2019ve never been in this situation before. I\u2019m trying to figure out what is going on but someone is after f**king up.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Ms Gannon asked him not to use such language in court, he retorted that he was told it was not a court and she was not a judge.<\/p>\n

The coroner directed him to stand down from the witness box after he remarked: \u201cIf you\u2019d like to finish, I\u2019d like to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before storming out from the courtroom, Mr Donoghue said: \u201cIt should be the f**king guards in that stand. It\u2019s unbelievable You\u2019re not a judge \u2013 it\u2019s a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the coroner attempted to explain that she was there to help the deceased\u2019s family, he accused her of being there to \u201ccover them all up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing the deceased\u2019s mother and other family members who remained at the hearing, Ms Gannon said she was going to adjourn proceedings but there would need to be some engagement between garda\u00ed and Mr Donoghue before the inquest could proceed.<\/p>\n

The coroner said she would be very happy to hold another sitting either before or after Christmas but they could not continue on the day due to the \u201clevel of upset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Gannon acknowledged that the witness had been grieving his son.<\/p>\n

Asking garda\u00ed to liaise with the family about the future course of the inquest, the coroner observed that she hoped progress could be made as she did not believe any of the issues raised by Mr Donoghue were \u201cinsurmountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dad of Brandon Buckley stormed out of his son’s inquest calling it ‘a joke’ amid disputes over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,7782,61,51277,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-185716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-dublin","9":"tag-gardai","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-inquests","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}