Athlone civil servant at centre of fraud enquiry died after drinking weedkiller in hotel room

An inquest into the sudden death of a Moate resident and an Athlone-based Department of Education staff member who is believed to have fraudulently paid himself almost €200,000 in home tuition grants heard that he died from paratoxicity after swallowing a mix of paraffin and oil. The inquest presided over by Offaly coroner Brian Mahon, heard in Tullamore on Monday, how Cathal Wynne, 33, from Fairfields, Toorphelim, took the poisons in a Sligo hotel room before driving home to Moate. He later died in Tullamore Hospital. The High Court recently heard that Wynne had wrongfully procured 49 payment orders worth €195,345. He had made home tuition grant cheques payable to fictitious recipients and then transferred the money for his own use. His wife, Louise Wynne, read out at the inquest a statement detailing the events leading up to her husband"s death. She said that on Monday evening May 22, 2006, her husband rang her from Kilmartin"s Service Station on the N6, to say he was on his way home, and asked her to turn on the electric blanket for him, as he felt sick. He arrived home at around 7.15pm and went straight to bed. He began getting sick and she brought him in a basin. As Mr Wynne"s condition became worse, Mrs Wynne contacted a GP in Tullamore. She drove her husband there and after an examination, the doctor said it was a 24-hour bug and wrote him a prescription. Mrs Wynne wasn"t satisfied and got a letter from the GP to bring her husband to casualty in Tullamore Hospital. Her mother went with them. Mr Wynne was seen immediately and was given a bed. He was still getting sick. His wife left at 5am early Tuesday morning and returned at 10am. She said that her husband told her that he hadn"t been sick during that time. However, his condition worsened and on the morning of May 24 at 6.20am, Mr Wynne passed away. The coroner asked Mrs Wynne did her husband tell her that anything had happened to him or that he had taken something. She said that he hadn"t. Detective Garda John Molloy from Sligo Garda Station told the inquest how on Tuesday May 23 2006 at 2.20pm he received a phonecall from the manager of a hotel on the Pearse Road in Sligo. The manager said two bottles of weedkiller had been found in a bedroom, left behind by a guest who had checked in the day before. When Detective Molloy entered room 312, he noticed a strong smell and found two one-litre bottles of weedkiller, one in the bathroom and another on the floor of the bedroom. The manager told the detective that the guest had checked in on Monday morning May 22 and was anxious to get a room, despite none being ready. The guest checked in under the name Daly from Moate, and also gave a false mobile phone number and reg plate number. The Sligo detective rang Moate gardaí who said there was no-one of that name known to them. When Detective Molloy ran the car reg plate, he found the car belonged to a man in Birr, who was not the same person. When he rang the mobile phone, a woman answered, who said she did not know anyone called Daly. The Sligo gardaí then checked through the CCTV footage from the hotel and contacted the Missing Persons Bureau with the images. On Thursday May 25, 2006, one day after his death, the Missing Persons Bureau identified the man as Cathal Wynne. Detective Molloy was then able to contact the Department of Education in Athlone, where Mr Wynne was an employee, and spoke to a colleague. Through a description over the phone, she said it sounded like Mr Wynne. Detective Molloy then travelled to Athlone to show her the CCTV stills and she confirmed that the man from the Sligo hotel was Mr Wynne. The Forensic Science Laboratory examined the bottles of weedkiller and found that they had contained paraffin and 2,4-D oil. Dr Declan Gilsenan, a regional state pathologist who carried out the postmortem on Mr Wynne, also gave evidence. He said that he found Mr Wynne"s lungs to be three to four times the normal weight. They were 'severely congested' with fluid. The trachea, bronchi and pancreas were also congested. The small intestine showed swelling. There was haemorrhaging to the skin and little pinpoint entries scattered extensively over the skin. The liver showed extensive corrorsis and the kidney showed tubular corrorsis which would be a symptom of poisoning. Dr Gilsenan said he was satisfied that these results were consistent with a death due to para-toxicity. The deceased"s ability to swallow the poisons and then drive from Sligo to Moate was not unusual he added after a question from the coroner. Dr Gilsenan said that the 'delay was almost typical' and that unless enormous amounts of the oil and paraffin were consumed undiluted, a person"s death could be delayed by up to five days. The coroner noted the courage of Mrs Wynne for giving evidence in relation to her husband"s drive home and his stay in hospital. He offered his sympathies and condolences to her and both their families. 'We don"t know the things that drive people to do this, so I would like to offer my sympathies to the family,' he added.