‘Savagely, brutally executed – and still we don’t know why...’
Scant closure for two families grappling to understand how a father could kill those closest to him, writes Nicola Anderson
and The family of Liam (13), Niall (11), and Ryan Hawe (6) and their mother Clodagh – slaughtered by their father husband Alan Hawe – say they are no wiser about why their loved ones were murdered. But Clodagh’s mother Mary and sister Jacqueline (above) say the couple’s marriage was about to fail.
ON THE invitation of questions by the coroner, Mary Coll sat forward in her seat and addressed the psychiatrist directly, asking: “Do you never interview families?”
Slightly flustered, consultant forensic psychiatrist Professor Harry Kennedy reiterated his condolences to the family, and Mary Coll again asked if, when compiling his reports, he ever considered interviewing families of the people who were murdered, or the family of the murderer.
“To be fair, he is my expert,” Coroner Dr Mary Flanagan explained gently, having asked the psychiatrist to compile a post-mortem psychiatric report on Alan Hawe which had given the opinion that he had severe depression with psychotic episodes.
“Seeing as you never met Alan Hawe, have you ever considered speaking to the family of Clodagh in relation to how he was?” Ms Coll said again.
“I knew him for 20 years. I didn’t know him but I knew him,” she said, her daughter Jacqueline holding her hand tightly as they sat in the body of Cavan courtroom on the week before Christmas.
It was a small comment but a revealing one, in the midst of this official inquiry into the tragic deaths of an entire family, mercilessly wiped out by Alan Hawe.
In answering the requirements of the Coroner’s Act quite precisely, it was also bound by the restrictions of the same act – forcing some avenues to remain unexplored and questions unanswered.
At the end, there were no real answers here, only a bald summary of what had happened, with some hints of what went on behind the scenes.
In particular, the apparent premeditation and calculated nature of the killings went completely unaddressed.
The only implication that this had been pre-planned and meticulously researched was the comment by the Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis during the previous day’s hearing, when he conceded he found it “very difficult to believe it had been coincidental” that all three children had been rendered unable to make a sound.
He also said he believed that Clodagh and the older boy, Liam, had been “dispatched” first to avoid the possibility of a struggle.
All this pointed to a carefully thought-out plan and certainly, for the Coll family, the process of the inquest appeared to be deeply flawed and frustratingly unsatisfactory.
“We are aware that the inquest has a limited role in law in that its function is restricted to establishing how, where and when our loved ones died,” the family said in their statement.
“However, it is clear from the evidence presented that Clodagh and the boys were killed in a sequence that ensured that the eldest and most likely to provide effective resistance were killed first, and that they were executed in a manner which rendered them unable to cry out for help.
“The inquest does not address why Alan Hawe committed this savagery but his counsellor has said that he was concerned about his position as ‘a pillar of the community’ and we are aware that he was concerned at his imminent fall from that position and the breakdown of his marriage,” they said.
“While the psychiatrist has attempted as best he could to create a retrospective diagnosis based on items and records,his GP who knew him for five years said he never displayed any signs of depression,” said the statement, which was read aloud by Liam Keane, their solicitor, as Mary and Jacqueline stood beside him, shivering in the chill air.
They went no further and would not elaborate on the ‘fall from grace’ that Hawe had expected to transpire.
However it was obvious
they disagreed with – or at least doubted – the medics on whether he suffered from a mental illness.
And the family of Alan Hawe – though entirely absent from the inquest – also appeared to consider some questions to have been left unanswered.
“We have had some light shed upon that darkness with the insight gained from thorough examination of the report of Prof Harry Kennedy and his opinion that Alan suffered from severe depressive illness,” they said in a statement released on their behalf, adding: “It does not make the pain and loss any easier for us.”
Nevertheless, despite the entire swathes of information missing from the picture of what exactly had led Hawe to act how he did, a bleak picture did emerge, piecemeal, of a man who was increasingly disturbed in his mind and believed that his life was tumbling down around him.
Counsellor Dave McConnell told the inquest how he had seen Hawe for 10 sessions of psychotherapy starting in March 15, 2016 in which Hawe had expressed a goal “for family life to get back to the way it was”.
On the last session, June 21, 2016, Hawe had arrived stressed, said Mr McConnell.
“He said: ‘People think of me as a pillar of the community. If only they knew,’ then wept,” said Mr McConnell, adding that he had felt a “strong empathetic connection” with him at that moment.
“I asked what he meant and he referred back to matters discussed in therapy,” he said – but told the inquest that this was more than he was required to report under the Coroner’s Act.
He believed Hawe had a fear of being seen as ‘less than perfect’ and he recommended further therapy – but Hawe did not return.
After his evidence, the coroner asked whether there were any questions. “They’re not within the limitations, so…” said Jacqueline, trailing off helplessly.
According to his GP, Dr Paula McKevitt, of Oldcastle, Co Meath, who last saw Hawe on June 21, 2016 – the same day he last saw his counsellor – he had not mentioned depression but told her that he had bleached his feet with Domestos.
It was, perhaps, another subtle sign that all was not normal here.
However, he was clear and consistent in his speech, she said afterwards, and his behaviour was “normal”.
In the end, the only verdicts possible were ones of unlawful killing in the case of Clodagh, Liam, Niall and Ryan Hawe, the jury forewoman’s voice cracking with emotion when it came to reading the verdict for little Ryan. A verdict of suicide was delivered in the case of Alan Hawe.
In their seats, the Coll family bowed their heads and wept once again.
In the end, the questions hang heavily in the face of such an inexplicable and catastrophic loss. But perhaps there can be no real answer as to the ‘why’.