They are expected to arrive at the end of May for a two-week period. The team will be working with Bahamian authorities. Little Paul was struck on the beach of Atlantis Resort by a raft-towing boat which broke free.
He was transported to Doctors Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on August 10, 2002. Less than a year after the incident, a Bahamas Coroner’s Court jury ruled Paul’s death as accidental. The pathologist reviewing the case listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, causing a fractured skull, haemorrhaging and lacerations of the brain.
However, the ruling of accidental death did not sit well with Paul and Andrea Gallagher, the toddler’s parents, as they pushed their government to have their own authorities reopen the case.
But Bahamian officials said they will not allow the case to be reopened, but agreed to have the British officers review the files with them.
In London, the boy’s parents told a local daily that they are “concerned and anxious” because they will not meet with the officers before they leave. British police officers have visited The Bahamas in recent years to review certain cases.
British police have assisted Bahamian authorities in investigating the death of British schoolteacher Carol Leach in Eleuthera.
She was found murdered in her home in September 1997. They also investigating the murder of 24-year-old Joanne Clarke in 1998, who was found dead on a beach on Paradise Island.
Like the Gallagher case, there was never any justice in these two cases either. Nobody was ever brought to trial for either murder.
By: IANTHIA SMITH, The Nassau Guardian
