Friday sentencing for trio in New Age Traveller killing case

A man and two women will be sentenced on Friday for killing a New Age Traveller and dumping his body in a slurry tank in West Cork.

A man and two women will be sentenced on Friday for killing a New Age Traveller and dumping his body in a slurry tank in West Cork.

A second man will be sentenced for impeding the investigation into the English man’s death.

Father-of-two Jason Thomas (aged 39) of Exeter in England and 27-year-old Scottish mother-of-one Amanda McNab had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Gary Bull on September 23, 2007.

Following a trial earlier this year, Fermoy native and mother-of-four Úna Geaney (aged 45) was found not guilty of murder but guilty of his manslaughter at the Dunmanway farmhouse she rented with McNab.

Joseph Barrett of Drimoleague, Cork, who will be 25 on Wednesday, pleaded guilty to withholding information. The maximum sentence for this crime is five years.

Sergeant Michael Lyons told the Central Criminal Court that, following a tip-off, gardaí found Mr Bull’s body at the bottom of the slurry pit on the farm attached to the women’s home on October 11, 2007.

He testified that the two women were arrested in Dublin the following day, having lied to gardaí and fled.

He said that the women’s home was an open house and that a birthday party had taken place there throughout the weekend of the killing.

He said that the deceased had been back and forth to the party at which alcohol and drugs were consumed. He arrived for the final time on the Sunday evening.

Mr Bull, who was a violent drunk, had broken up with one of the party guests two weeks earlier, after attacking her with a concrete saw in the same farmhouse.

He was drunk and argumentative again that Sunday evening, and got into a scuffle with Geaney.

He went out to his jeep and started his petrol-powered concrete saw. He was on the way back to the house when another guest hit him over the head with a plank of wood and took the saw from him.

He recovered and was back in the house drinking when he had another scuffle with Geaney and tried to leave. However she had hidden his keys down her bra.

Geaney, McNab and Thomas were afraid he would return with others to seek retribution if they let him go. The other guests wanted nothing to do with their plan and were sent to a bedroom.

McNab and Thomas parked Mr Bull’s jeep in a laneway, known as ‘The Escape Route’, and were returning to the house when they met Geaney and the victim in the front yard.

There was another scuffle between Geaney and Mr Bull and Thomas gave Geaney her own wooden mallet and told her to hit him.

She hit him on the legs and handed the mallet back to Thomas, who continued the assault on Mr Bull’s head.

“At no point did the women ask him to stop,” said the sergeant.

McNab got a knife but it was weak and bent as she tried to stab Mr Bull. No stab wounds were found on the victim, who died from blunt force trauma to the head.

“It appears the assault was a frenzied attack,” said Sgt Lyons.

He said that at one point, a guest came from the bedroom and saw Thomas kneeling over Gary Bull with the mallet held over his head, saying: “I can’t believe he’s still alive.”

He said that Geaney later ran into the house and told the other guests that Mr Bull was dead and that they needed to plant a tree.

“Where a bad man stands, a tree should be planted,” she said.

Geaney burned the mallet and the body was put in the slurry tank.

The women camped out in a nearby forest until the weather forced them to return to the farmhouse and Thomas headed for England, where he was caught last year.

Sgt Lyons said that Thomas has previous convictions, including for possession of an article with a blade.

Geaney, whose son had died of a drug overdose in the farmhouse, has previous convictions for assault and possession of knives and has received custodial sentences.

Barrett has 36 previous convictions, including for assault causing harm and violent disorder.

Sgt Lyons said that Mr Bull had distanced himself from his family and moved to Ireland, where he was a heroin addict. However he had worked in landscaping in West Cork and had recently renewed his relationship with his two teenaged daughters.

He read out a victim impact statement prepared by his brother, Adrian Bull, who said his death had aged and depressed his parents.

Mr Justice Paul Carney will sentence the four on Friday.

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