Changed his story: Kieron Ducie rang a drug dealer before ringing 999
Party girl: tragic Katy French lived a wild life
Ducie's home in Kilmessan
Grim scenes: Katy's funeral
Grieving: Katy's mother, father and sister at memorial mass
KIERON ‘the Wolf’ Ducie is still lying through his teeth about the night Katy French died, a Sunday World investigation reveals today. The social climber was branded a “liar” by the French family when he changed his story again this week.
He told the Coroners Court he was so drunk on vodka that he cannot remember the timings of when he found the model dying on the floor of his home.
He hoped his new story would explain away the 90 missing minutes during which Katy’s family believe she could have been saved.
But today, the Sunday World tracked down a businessman who admitted partying hard with the Wolf and two unidentified women the night Katy died.
For the first time, we can reveal how Joe Hand told gardai that Ducie was taking cocaine himself before he drove home to Kilmessan where Katy and his lover Ann Corcoran were waiting.
Hand also told cops days after the tragedy that Ducie was “sober” when he went home – directly contradicting the Wolf’s evidence to this week’s inquest.
The revelations will lead to further questions as to why charges of not getting the model medical help quickly enough were dropped.
Hand was shocked to be tracked down by the Sunday World, six years after having a sordid drink-and-sex party at his apartment with the Wolf and two aspiring models.
“I don’t do business with him anymore, I don’t socialise with him, I see him out occasionally, but I don’t want anything to do with him or any of what happened,” Hand told the Sunday World.
But speaking at his company in Dublin’s Malahide this week, he insisted: “I stand over my statement to the gardai.”
Today the Sunday World reveals for the first time exactly what Ducie was doing in the hours before he ended up driving Katy French to A&E in Navan General Hospital Co Meath on Sunday December 2, 2007.
Recycling boss Hand told detectives he’d gone clubbing with Ducie in Dublin’s trendy Cocoon and Lillies nightclubs, before heading back to his one-bed apartment in Swords with two women they’d picked up, who he knew only by first names.
He said one was an aspiring model who Ducie nicknamed “my nursie”.
In a damning statement, Hand said he saw Ducie – who always insisted that he abhors drugs and never took coke himself – lining up white lines at the party.
“I saw Kieron dividing out some lines of cocaine on the table with some sort of card,” he told cops during a formal interview.
“It was a plastic bag, I don’t know what size it was. When he did the lines on the table there was still some left in the bag. R*** and Kieron definitely took some of these lines by using a rolled up note of some sort, I can’t say if the other girl took any, I wasn’t paying any particular attention. I didn’t take any line, never taken any. I’m not into it at all.”
Hand told the Sunday World he has never been in trouble with the law and had nothing to do with drugs that night.
“I have no criminal convictions, I have two penalty points, which I got because I didn’t realise I was speeding. I had nothing to do with any of this and I don’t want any more to do with it. I don’t remember what happened that night. It was a long time ago.”
Asked if he was he standing over the claims he’d made to detectives after Katy’s death, the Englishman stated “Yes”.
The company director, who specializes in scrapping hard drives and obsolete IT systems, got to know 43-year-old Ducie through the scrap metal Ducie collected from him.
The pair went clubbing the night Katy died and Ducie picked Joe up in his navy Landcruiser, which he parked on the outskirts of the city.
They got a taxi to Cocoon nightclub, and went on to Lillies, sharing a 70cl bottle Absolut Vodka mixed with Red Bull or Lucozade and hooked up with the women.
Hand gave Ducie the key to his apartment and the Wolf went back ahead of him with the two girls. Hand followed later. “After some time Kieron disappeared with the girl to my bedroom,” Hand told gardai.
“I assume he went for a sh*g. I took to the couch and drifted in and out of sleep.
“At some stage I heard Kieron get up and as he went out the door I think he made reference to being ‘back in a minute’. … When he didn’t come back I texted or called him. I asked him was he gone.” Ducie texted back: “Gone. Enjoy.” Hand admitted:
“I took it that if I wanted to try her, he (Ducie) had no problem.” Later the girl arrived back from the bedroom into the sitting room, asking where Ducie was gone.
“She was not impressed,” Hand said. “Since I’ve been hanging around with Kieron I’ve known him to be a womaniser. He considers himself a ladies’ man.”
In his own original statement – which he changed this week – Ducie claimed he got home at 6.30am – getting a taxi to his car and driving home to Kilmessan, a round trip of 56.48km, which should have taken about an hour and a quarter.
He said he found Katy convulsing on the floor at 8.15am. However, he only brought her through the A&E doors of Navan hospital after 10am, having phoned drug dealer Russell Memery before dialling 999 to ask him “what was in the coke?”
In his self-serving revision of events this week, Ducie said he’d taken Katy straight to hospital as soon as she’d got sick, and could not remember any of the timings as he was drunk.
He said he could no longer be certain what time he got home. But our investigations show that phone records indicate he left Swords around 5.30am, the time he texted Hand. Other calls to both Katy and Corcoran were also made around this time.
The Sunday World also learned that Hand told gardai Ducie asked him to lie in his statement. He admitted lying about the girls, as he didn’t want to drop his pal in it “for playing away from home”.
The Wolf’s pal also said in one statement he never saw Ducie taking cocaine, before later admitting that he had.
Ducie and Corcoran received a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for arranging the drug deal for Katy. Dealer Russell Memery also received a suspended sentence. There are no further charges likely in the case.
Coroner John Lacy returned an open verdict on the model’s death, which was caused by oxygen starvation to her brain due to cocaine and ephedrine.
“You say you were a friend to her, but you were no friend to her in death,” solicitor John McGuiggan told Corcoran.
Ducie did not return calls or texts from the Sunday World.
The final 72 hours of Katy French's life
The final 72 hours of Katy French’s life have been pieced together in statements from people who partied with the model as she headed for tragedy.
But despite an almost hour by hour account – mostly by men who were drawn to Katy’s fame and beauty – there are still unanswered questions around the 90 minutes before she was brought to hospital by Kieron Ducie and Ann Corcoran.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
9pm – The golden girl celebrates her 24th birthday – Celtic Tiger style. It’s not really her birthday, and she’s surrounded by the Teflon hangers-on and groupies she considers friends.
5am – The party bombs, but Katy doesn’t know how to stop, and instead of leaving Krystle to go home to bed, she uses a false name to book a room in the Westbury where she has a drinking session with journalist Brendan O’Connor and Kathryn Thomas’s ex, garda Enda Waters.
Friday, November 30
8.15am – Katy goes home to her mother’s house in Wicklow, heading out again in the afternoon to be interviewed in her Citywest apartment by journalist Brendan O’Connor. The interview starts between 2 and 3pm and Katy drops O’Connor home at 9pm.
Saturday, Dec 1
Katy spends the day being filmed by a TV crew on a pilot show called the Model Agent, and she and her pal Andrea Roche pose at Palmerstown House, the palatial mansion where Katy’s boyfriend, Jimmy Mansfield Jnr lives.
In his bedroom, Katy finds some other woman’s possessions. Despite her fury, the show goes on and Katy drives to Dundrum to continue with the filming.
8.30pm – she gets back to her mum’s and watches Brendan O’Connor on Ryan Tubridy’s Saturday Night Show.
9.59pm – Kieron Ducie texts her: “Are you out 2 nite hun …. Strutter x” He is out clubbing with his friend, Joe Hand, but he organises some drugs for her to pick up from dealer Russell Memery, telling him where he is to meet Katy.
Sunday, Dec 2
12.30am – Katy collects a €200 bag of cocaine from Russell Memery, and takes it to Ducie’s house in Lambertstown Manor, Kilmessan, where Ducie’s girlfriend, Ann Corcoran, is waiting.
2am – Ducie leaves Lillies Bordello with a model he calls “my nursie” and gets a taxi to his friend Joe Hand’s apartment in Swords.
5.24am – Ducie sneaks out of bed, leaving nursie, so as to check in with his girlfriend Ann at home.
5.25am – Ducie phones Katy. More than five-and-a-half years later, Ducie will tell Katy’s inquest that he can no longer stand over his claim that Katy had a convulsion at 8.15am because he was drunk.
He now claims he brought her straight to hospital, where he arrived after 10am. His phone records tell their own story about his movements.
5.30am – Texts beep into Ducie’s phone from his mate Joe Hand – asking where he is, and what does he mean he’s gone.
5.41am – Ducie gets a text from his “nursie” saying: ‘Can’t believe you f**ked off thanx.’
10.02am – Ducie phones Russell Memery shouting: “What was in the coke?”
10.06 and 10.08am – Ducie phones ‘999’ and says Katy banged her head.
10.12am – Ducie and Corcoran bring Katy to Navan General A&E. A nurse asked them if Katy had taken cocaine. Ducie lied that she’d drunk two bottles of champagne with Ann.
10.14 and 10.32am – Ducie contacts Russell Memery four times.
Friday, Dec 6
Katy’s life support is switched off. An autopsy will reveal she died of brain damage caused by ingestion of cocaine.
By Niamh O'Connor and Eugene Masterson