Coma Dads Family

 Coma dad's family launch web bid to catch gun attacker

By Conor Feehan Saturday September 19 2009

The family of a Dublin dad who has been in a coma since being blasted in the head in an unprovoked attack are to launch a website in the hope of bringing his attacker to justice. Postman Robert Delaney (27) remains in Tallaght Hospital after being shot on the morning of October 22 last year at the Russell Rise apartments in Dublin 24.

His family have been told there is no hope of recovery. Robert, a father of two girls, has been in hospital since he was shot in the face with a shotgun after he opened a window at his Tallaght apartment to see who was at his door below. Being cared for by his partner Mags Purtill and family, Robert is fed through a tube, and his only responses are some limited movements to voices he knows. His right eye and the right side of his brain are dead, and his left eye and left-brain are severely damaged. Robert has also developed severe epilepsy.
This week his family are set to launch a new website called innocentvictimsofviolence.ie so that families affected by unprovoked attacks can keep their campaigns for justice alive. "We hope the site will help us and others to keep their relatives' plights in the public eye and give contact information for anybody who could assist in ongoing enquiries," Robert's father Terence told the Herald. Wary that the site could be disrupted in the same way as a recently launched website by the family of Raonaid Murray, Mr Delaney explained that a filtering system would be in place to screen posts.
Gardai believe that Robert, who has no criminal history, may have been targeted under the instructions of a leading figure in the Republican movement after he intervened in a pub row in the Saggart area some weeks before the shooting. On the day he was shot, he didn't leave the house early as planned due to a shift change. It is thought that his would-be killers tried to lure him out by ringing the apartment bell. Mags said: "Bob went in to the kitchen and I could hear the voice through the intercom calling his name. But the next thing I heard was 'bang bang' and I ran in to see Bob turning towards me and sliding down the wall covered in blood." This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. - Conor Feehan