Dubliner gets suspended sentence for manslaughter
A High Court judge has said during a manslaughter sentencing that he has been "haunted by the conditions of the cruelly-named Fatima Mansions" during the course of the trial which was heard at the Central Criminal Court last February.
Mr Justice Paul Carney today handed down a five-year-suspended sentence on a 35-year-old Dublin man who had been found guilty of the manslaughter of a former All Ireland boxing champion who suffered from a drug addiction.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said he did "not see any purpose" that would be served imprisoning Mr Anthony Burke.
Mr Burke of Clancarty Road, Donnycarney in Dublin had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Joseph Sutcliffe, aged 32, in Fatima Mansions, Rialto in the capital’s inner city.
The trial, which lasted seven days, heard that the father of three died as a result of blood loss from a single stab wound to the abdomen.
The Central Criminal Court jury of five men and seven women took just over seven hours to reach its majority verdict of 11 to 1 last February.
Judge Carney said it seemed to him that Mr Burke was a "decent man and remains one who was sucked into something that he wasn’t able to cope with".
The trial judge then gave Mr Burke a five year suspended sentence on the condition he keep the peace for five years on a bond of €1000.
Mother-of-five, Ms Ellen Cahill of Fatima Mansions pleaded guilty to a count of impeding the apprehension or prosecution for an arrestable offence contrary to Section 7(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1997. Judge Carney said he found the "facts have been proved when applying probation" regarding Ms Cahill.
The court heard that Ms Cahill disposed of the knife after the fatal stabbing but she later showed gardaí where the knife was located.
Before sentencing, Judge Carney told the court that he is "asked on a daily basis" how he can sit and listen to the evidence he hears in court. "So far, I have been able to do it because by the time of 4.10pm, I have forgotten what I’ve been dealing with. But in this case, my defences have broken down. On the conclusion of this case, I have been haunted by the conditions of the cruelly-named Fatima Mansions".
Judge Carney said on the night of the fatal stabbing, the court heard that there was a "large number of people about on the night the deceased met his death". "We heard many of these young people had subsequently died from drug-related conditions in the time it took the case to come to trial."
Judge Carney said the court heard from young women who "ply their trade" on Baggot Street and Benburb Street "until they got enough money to buy drugs at Fatima Mansions.
Judge Carney said the court heard during the trial that people were told ‘go left for the white stuff and go right for the brown stuff’ when looking for drugs at the block of flats.
Judge Carney said Mr Burke had no previous convictions and is a "man who spends his life looking after his invalid father". The judge said he accepted that the accused man "had not intended to kill anyone".
During the trial, Judge Carney said the court saw the accused on taped interviews "trembling with incomprehension and remorse". Perhaps Mr Burke said "more then he ought" to have for his own good, Judge Carney said.
Ms Sharon O’Keefe, partner of the deceased man told prosecuting barrister Mr Luan O Braonain BL that Mr Sutcliffe was her "best friend and partner" and since his death all she has is their two children, Joseph, aged 11, and Lee, aged nine, to keep her going.
"Joe loved his children," Ms O’Keefe said.
A brother of the deceased man, Mr Philip Sutcliffe told Mr O Braonain that a "picture" of his brother was painted during the trial "that was not true". "My mother misses him very much, we all do," he added.
After the sentencing, Mr Sutcliffe said outside court he was "devastated" with the judgement of the trial judge. "He won’t serve a day behind bars. He took a life and he still walks free. I think it was very unjust on myself and for our family," he said.
Detective Sgt Crowe told Mr O Braonain BL, prosecuting counsel, that there was up to a 100 people at Fatima Mansions on the night to buy drugs and that the deceased man was "one such person people would go to buy drugs off".
Mr O Braonain BL told the court before sentencing yesterday that Mr Burke had visited Fatima Mansions with friends, May and Anthony "Chiller" Cahill, on Saturday night October 12.
The court heard that this was a rare night out for Mr Burke who is a full time carer for his elderly father. The court heard that Mr Burke was very drunk, having spent the evening in the pub.
While at the council housing complex, Mr Burke went into one of the flats to break up a fight involving Mr Cahill. The accused hit "Chiller’s" opponent, now known to be Joe Sutcliffe, "two boxes on the chin".
Before Mr Burke left, he said, this man threatened him: "You’re going to get it. You’re getting it off me." He also noticed a man with a knife. This man, identified later as Seán Buckley, was pushing Mr Sutcliffe up onto a sofa.
After this brawl, Mr Burke told gardaí he was standing with May’s sister, Ellen Cahill, when Mr Buckley approached him with a warning: "You’re going to get it."
Mr Buckley said he had received a text message saying as much, and he handed Ms Cahill a knife.
Mr Burke admitted taking this weapon from Ellen for his "own protection".
A minute later, the suspect said, he went to break up another fight, this time outside, between "Chiller" and a man in a hoodie. "I didn’t know who it was ‘til I pulled them apart… I just turned around and stuck him with the knife I had in my hand," he said of Mr Sutcliffe.
"I done him because I thought he was going to do me… I didn’t mean to stick him bad. I just meant to nick him, so he’d go home and leave me alone," he added.
Afterwards, Mr Burke said, he turned around, dropped the knife and walked away. It was not until the next morning that he learned a man had died. That evening, he went to his local garda station to say he was involved, but it was a week before he admitted going to the fight, armed with a knife, and stabbing Mr Sutcliffe.
"I have to live with this… I’m really sorry about this," Mr Burke cried during the interviews. He spoke of how the whole affair was going to kill his elderly father, for whom he cared full-time. On his day in the witness box, the garda in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector Gabriel O’Gara, admitted Mr Burke seemed genuinely remorseful on the day of his arrest.
A number of Fatima residents gave evidence during this trial, one of whom was Natasha Gavin, who told gardaí she was not sorry Mr Sutcliffe was dead. He had assaulted her, she testified, and "said if I said anything to the guards, he’d storm the house, rape me, rape my niece and my ma", she told the court.
Ms Gavin said that the deceased, who was one of 11 children, used to be out "selling gear" until six in the morning, a statement backed up by other witnesses.
Acquaintances testified that the Drimnagh native had taken cocaine, heroine and large amounts of alcohol in the hours before he died. Medical staff at St James’ hospital were warned that he might have Hepatitis C and be HIV positive.
The State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, gave her post-mortem findings to the court earlier this week. She said she found "massive haemorrhage behind the lining of the abdomen around the right kidney" and the source of the bleeding was a main artery.
Apart from the stab wound, which led to this blood loss, Dr Cassidy also found abnormalities in Mr Sutcliffe’s heart and lungs, not resulting from violence.
She discovered "abnormality of heart arteries, normally seen in much older people. The right coronary artery was narrowed to a pin-hole," she said. The left one was reduced by 50%, she said, and such clogging of both vessels would have made resuscitation more difficult. Mr Sutcliffe’s liver was also badly damaged from alcohol.
The pathologist found no evidence of defensive injuries to his arms and admitted only moderate force would have been necessary to inflict the injury. She concluded that the cause of Mr Sutcliffe’s death was "haemorrhage and shock due to a stab wound to the abdomen".
