Dad blames trauma for finger-loss story
Guy Wallace claimed his finger was severed in a racist attack
Friday March 28 2008
THE father of an English tourist who lost a finger during a bizarre incident on St Patrick's Day claims his son may have concluded it was torn off in a racist attack because he was traumatised from an earlier assault.
Guy Wallace (17), from Somerset, told gardai and the media that he believed he was the victim of a racist attack in Dublin's O'Connell Street when the finger on his right hand was severed during a melee in which he claimed his attackers had ignored his pleas for mercy.
But gardai on Wednesday found the teenager's missing digit on top of a serrated steel fence surrounding a car park on off Marlborough Street after examining CCTV footage that showed him trying to climb the jagged barrier.
Now his father, British Conservative Party councillor Guy Wallace, said he believes his son came up with the bizarre explanation for his missing finger because he was in shock and suffering from memory loss and trauma.
He also admitted the boy had consumed alcohol before the incident.
Memory
Mr Wallace said: "What happened, we understand, was very much memory loss and having gone through this trauma," he said of an earlier altercation with a group of young men outside the McDonald's restaurant on O'Connell Street.
Mr Wallace said he now believes his son attempted to climb the fence during his escape from the thugs and injured his finger falling off it.
"With the events mixed in his mind together, I think that through the absolute terror and the running away, I think it was synchronised together and came out as an attack. Of course there was an attack and he was a victim of that," he told Pat Kenny on RTE radio.
The teenager, who is an avid pianist, is still coming to terms with losing his finger, his father said.
"He is very down still and coming to terms with having lost the finger of his right hand. He has had plastic surgery.
"We're in and out of hospital checking to see that it's healing properly.
"He's depressed about the fact that his piano playing and rugby playing won't be what they were. But we have to go on and we have to adapt but he's being very brave about it basically," Mr Wallace said.
- Allison Bray
