Tragic Emma’s husband keeps pressure on for private inquest
Proceedings stalled as billionaire JP’s son seeks injunction
BILLIONAIRE racing magnate JP McManus’s son John Paul has increased his efforts to keep the public and the press out of the inquest into his wife Emma’s death in Barbados.
Emma McManus, 40, a mother of three daughters, was discovered dead in the bedroom of their home on the morning of December 30, 2020.
As a result of the legal application by the widower, the inquest did not continue yesterday.
The coroner, Magistrate Graveney Bannister, spent less than five minutes on the bench as he apologised to those present for the fact that the proceedings would not be able to go ahead. ‘The proceedings will be adjourned until a further date due to an application being brought by the family McManus in the afternoon yesterday [Thursday],’ he said.
‘We are awaiting direction from the [Civil] Court with regards to the application that was made.’
Neither John Paul McManus nor his attorney attended yesterday.
The Irish Daily Mail, which previously reported on Mr McManus’s attempts to keep the case private, has learnt that local attorneys Satcha Kissoon and Maya Carrington, who filed the urgent application on Mr McManus’s behalf, had urged the Civil Court to impose an interim injunction staying the proceedings of the Coroner’s Court.
The attorneys are claiming the coroner showed bias in his dealings with Mr McManus and refused him the right to have an attorney during the proceedings.
‘I was in a state of utter panic’
The attorneys want the contents of the toxicology report and the autopsy kept out of the public’s eye and tried to stretch the appeal until mid-April.
However, Judge Shona Griffith, who heard the application, did not grant the attorneys their injunction. The judge said she would be clearing her calendar and wanted the matter finished by the end of next month.
At a previous hearing, John Paul McManus declared that he was willing to ‘take a test’ as he denied he told coroner Mr Bannister, in a telephone call allegedly made to the magistrate shortly after his wife’s death, that they had been doing ‘a little cocaine’ on the night of his wife’s death.
He further denied he telephoned the magistrate several times in an attempt to get his wife’s body released into his custody.
Mr McManus was one of ten witnesses who earlier testified at the start of the coroner’s inquest into Ms McManus’s death.
The Irishman told the court he walked into their bedroom of their Sandy Lane Estate home to find his wife in bed, propped up against pillows, ‘like she had been awake and had propped herself up’.
‘I looked at her, and I was like, “Oh my God”, and I jumped on the bed and I kind of slapped her in the face initially,’ he said.
Mr McManus said he then ran out the bedroom yelling for his father.
‘I was in a state of utter panic,’ the witness recalled.
He added: ‘I was never in a state of distress like that before.’
‘You were so distressed that you even called the coroner’s office, didn’t you?’ Mr Bannister asked. ‘Yes,’ McManus replied. ‘And you spoke to an official in the coroner’s office and you wanted to know how soon you could have a burial for your beloved wife,’ Mr Bannister said. ‘I wanted to, considering there is a certain amount of interest from people on the outside. Also, I was hoping that everything could be done in private,’ the widower replied, adding that his was ‘a well-known family at home’. ‘Do you remember saying to the official in the coroner’s office that you had a party at your house?’ Mr Bannister asked. ‘Yes,’ Mr McManus replied. ‘And you told the official at the coroner’s office that you had a little cocaine,’ Mr Bannister responded.
‘Nope, that is incorrect,’ Mr McManus declared.
He added: ‘I will stand here in this courtroom and happily take a test for it and prove I am right and what you are saying is wrong. I did not say that.’
The Limerick native had earlier refused to read his police statement into evidence and had questioned if he was entitled to legal counsel. ‘I didn’t realise the sort of forum this would be,’ he said.
Sergeant Robert Jones later read Mr McManus’s statement to the court. In it, it was claimed that the widower said: ‘From my knowledge, Emma was not suffering from any medical condition. Emma was not taking any medication. She was not smoking anything and I don’t know if she was taking any narcotics.’
‘What you are saying is wrong’