doneraile · IE
CondannatoSommario
A 21-year-old man has been found guilty of the murder of a Cork postman. A 17-year-old boy was separately found guilty of the same murder on 30 July 2026. Victim impact statements are to be heard before he is sentenced. On 31 August 2026 the 21-year-old was given the mandatory life sentence for murder, backdated to 3 July, with credit directed for time already spent in custody on the matter. The judge described the circumstances of the death as brutal, saying that while the action that took the victim's life was not prolonged, it was a brutal one, and noted that the defendant does not accept the murder verdict although he accepts that he caused the death. Two teenage co-accused cannot be named because of their age. Both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and not guilty to murder. The State refused to accept that plea from the older of the two, aged 17, who was then convicted of murder by a jury; the plea of the younger, aged 16, was accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Both teenagers were sentenced on 11 September 2026. The 17-year-old received 11 years in detention with the final three years suspended, together with a concurrent two-year sentence for assaulting a man earlier the same evening. The 16-year-old received two and a half years in detention with the final six months suspended. The court heard how the killing came about. The town had been celebrating a Junior B hurling championship win, with the players given a lap of honour and much of the population on the main street, and a series of brawls followed outside a pub at closing time. The victim struck the girlfriend of the man later convicted of his murder, accounts varying as to whether that was accidental or deliberate, and the three then went to the victim's home on what the sentencing judge described as an "armed retaliatory expedition". The judge noted there was very little evidence of what occurred in the early hours outside the house.