Published: Tuesday, 10th June, 2008 10:30
Who gave Chad the drugs that killed him?
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Chad Hyslop
THE two men who probably hold the key to one of the most important unknowns in the case — where Chad got the drugs that killed him — are proving to be unreliable witnesses.
However, one of the pair, Robert Hastings has admitted he may have supplied the drugs.
Drug users Robert Currie, 19, and Hastings, 34, shared a police cell with Chad Hyslop.
The inquiry has heard contradictory accounts of the morning Chad died from both witnesses.
One thing they have both admitted to at some stage is that three lines of heroin were prepared in the cell they shared with Chad, 19, and all three took one.
Chad and Currie had been arrested by police investigating an incident in the afternoon of Friday February 23 outside the benefits office in Meadowbank Street, Dumbarton.
Hastings was lifted later that day in relation to two outstanding cases against him.
The three were put in a cell together on Saturday February 24, after an influx of new prisoners from a Faslane protest group meant they had to be placed together.
At the FAI Currie and Hastings both claimed they could not fully remember what happened during their time in the cells, as they had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs.
On the morning of Chad’s death Currie, who is currently a prisoner at Greenock, gave a statement to police.
In that statement he accused Hyslop of producing the fatal dose of heroin and claimed Chad had been the only one of the three to take it.
In another statement given the next day Currie claimed Chad produced the drugs, before he (Chad) and Hastings took it.
And in a third statement, given two months later, he claimed he saw Hastings “crouching near the toilet [in the cell] and pulled out the bag from his sock”.
When asked what he remembers now, Currie said he could only recall “patches of the weekend” as he had been taking valium and drinking for six days straight before his arrest, and had “told what I know”.
He told the inquiry on Wednesday that he was “under the influence” of drink or drugs when he gave all the statements and had “just been answering questions”.
The FAI also heard that Currie had approached Chad’s grieving father, Hugh O’Neil, and told him Hastings provided the heroin.
On Thursday, when questioned regarding this, Currie told the FAI although he did not know this for definite, he had said it because he thought people would not believe he could not remember.
Sheila McDermid, fiscal depute, said: “So, your position is that you made up something to tell Mr O’Neil about the death of his son?”
Currie responded: “I don’t know what to say — I never made it up, I just said it.”
On Thursday, Hastings, also a prisoner at Greenock, took to the stand.
He also claimed he was high on heroin and methadone when arrested and said that he did not know where the fatal heroin came from. However, in his initial police statement he admitted, “it was most likely” himself who produced the drugs in the cell.
In Hasting’s original account, he said he prepared the three lines of heroin, and “took the biggest one” himself, before Currie and Chad took the other two.
According to the statement, Hastings said Chad was looking “groggy” after snorting the heroin, and his “breathing was quite strange” and “kind of horsey”. Hastings then claimed Chad fell asleep first.
On Thursday, he said: “I can’t remember what happened, but if it says it in my statement then it must be true.”
For the full story see this week's Reporter
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