GREECE: British father who plunged from balcony with children tells hearing suicide runs in his family

A Briton charged with the murder and attempted murder of his two children after plunging from a hotel balcony told a Greek prosecutor on Wednesday (August 30) that suicide ran in his family, a police source said. John Hogan is charged with murder over the death of his six-year-old son Liam, and attempted murder over injuries to his younger daughter Mia. He fell, his two children under his arms, from a balcony on the fourth floor of their hotel in the town of Ierapetra on August 15 during a family holiday. Hundreds of mourners turned out in Bristol, in western England, on Tuesday (August 29) for the funeral of Liam Hogan, who died of head injuries sustained in the fall. His sister Mia survived with a broken arm. Hogan, who has been under guard in hospital with a broken arm, leg and hip was visibly in pain, but had his mother and another relative at his side for support. After being carried up a set of stairs, he fell into the arms of his family, crying and saying 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' and his relatives cried with him as he approached the hearing room. "During the interrogation Mr. Hogan was not in a condition to communicate, neither with the interrogator or the others present. He was crying constantly, and he was non-sensical," said his lawyer Dimitris Xyritakis. "What we presented at testimony in writing was the following: He does not remember what happened on the night of August 15 at the hotel. The only thing he remembers is a previous verbal argument between himself and his wife, in which she threatened him that she would take the children and go back to England to live with her mother. She asked him that they leave immediately, and to cut their vacation short by one week. From then on, he does not remember what happened," he added. A police source said Hogan also told the prosecutor that suicide runs in his family and two of his brothers had taken their own lives. One brother took a drugs overdose a decade ago while another jumped off a bridge in Bristol, the Briton said. The source also said Hogan provided documents from the hospital in Crete that say he is still suicidal and if he is diagnosed as insane, he could be released within two or three years. The prosecutor will decide later on Wednesday whether the Briton will be allowed bail pending his trial.

ITN Source | August 30, 2006

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