A HEARTBROKEN mother has hit out this week upon learning that her dead son’s identity had been stolen by one of the gang members involved in last week’s cocaine seizure in Co Cork.
Mary O’Leary told the post of her distress that one of the men charged with last week’s seizure, 22 year old Gerard Hagan, was using a passport issued in the name of her dead son Gerard.
“I am raging that someone took the child’s name. I want to know how he got it, where he got it, and what it has been used for since he got it,” Ms O’Leary’s cried out.
Her son Gerard was born on 2 July 1985 in Monaghan General Hospital but died later that same day in hospital in Drogheda. He is buried in Latlurcan cemetery, Monaghan although Mary O’Leary and her family now reside in Armagh.
The sorrow stricken mum only discovered that her son’s name had been used after it was revealed in a newspaper report last week. “We didn’t find out until we read it in the paper. It was an awful shock to find out that he had used the child’s name and date of birth. No one has contacted us about it yet although we tried ringing the guards in Monaghan” she said.
In a bizarre coincidence, the date of her son’s birth, July 2, is the same date that the cocaine was seized in Cork. “The day that the drugs were found was his birthday. It’s very sad. He was born at half nine that morning but died on the same day.”