Whatever the verdict there are no winners in the Pádraig Nally case

No matter which way the jury decide in the retrial of Pádraig Nally there will be no winners in this case.

I read on the Irish Times website that the jury of eight men and four women failed to reach a verdict at the Central Criminal Court and will resume their deliberations at 10.30am this morning.

Neither side can win this case. John Ward is dead and Pádraig Nally is a broken man.

John Ward was a disturbed man who had resorted to drugs and funded his addiction with crime.

Pádraig Nally is a man whose fears, real and imagined, drove him to the brink and having shot John Ward left him suicidal and even more afraid.

In 2001 John Ward gave an interview to the Sligo Champion newspaper about his life. "I have ten children but I have only one caravan and it is not big enough so my six boys have to sleep in the back of the van," said Mr. Ward, whose children range in ages from three to eighteen.

"My sons are freezing at night in the van. They cannot get a good night's sleep because of the cold but there's nothing I can do about it. I cannot turn the engine on because of the fumes. They're going to bed in the back of a cold damp van and they are awake at five in the morning unable to go back asleep.
"I end up lighting a fire nearby in the mornings to get them warm before they go to school. They constantly have colds and chest infections and I am up and down to the doctor all the time with them."

At the time of his death John Ward had approximately 80 previous convictions over 38 recorded dates for offences including burglary, trespass and assaulting gardaí.

In May 2004 Ward produced a slash hook and threatened gardaí at Carrowbone Halting Site in Galway, where he lived. Gardaí had also been threatened with a slash hook during another incident in April 2002. Mr Ward was arrested for both offences but never prosecuted.At the time of his death there were four outstanding warrants for his arrest, all for failure to appear in court. Mr Ward had also been receiving psychiatric treatment in hospital in Galway at that stage.

“I was out of my mind for these lads calling to my house all year" said Padraig Nally about his predicament whereby he had been a continuous target of criminals for a long period of time. Mr Nally said he had been living in fear for the five months before the fatal shooting, and that he often sat in his shed with a loaded shotgun for up to five hours at a time waiting to be robbed.

He said he was afraid of being broken into and killed in his bed. He often only slept a few hours at night and the pressure was almost unbearable. After shooting John Ward Nally considered suicide.

There are no winners in this case if Padraig Nally is found innocent or guilty. Mr Ward was let down by a society that did not assist him when he needed help and Mr Nally was let down by a society that failed to protect him from Mr Ward.

If fingers have to be pointed in this tragedy it is not at either men it is at our society and state.