Father gets 10 years for stabbing pal
A father-of-one with 48 previous criminal convictions was jailed for 10 years by a judge at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin today for the manslaughter of his friend in 2002.
William O'Connor, aged 34, of St John's Terrace, Kinsale, Co Cork, had pleaded not guilty to the murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Richard Daly, aged 26, of Buttevant, Co Cork on June 16, 2002 at Tower Street in Cork.
The court heard that the accused and the deceased man, Mr Daly, were friends. On the day of the murder, they had been drinking in a pub, watching the Ireland-Spain World Cup match.
Mr Daly was accompanied by his girlfriend, the mother of his then four-month-old child, and the accused was accompanied by his partner of six years, with whom he has a five-year-old daughter.
In the mid-afternoon a dispute arose between the accused and his girlfriend. O'Connor gave her a kick and poured drink over her, the court heard. She then left the pub with the deceased man's girlfriend.
At around 4.30pm in the afternoon, the accused went to the home of the dead man, where his girlfriend was. He entered the house, punched her in the face and set her upon the ground. His daughter, who was in a buggy at the time, was knocked to the ground during the altercation.
It was then Mr Daly intervened and was stabbed by O'Connor. His girlfriend had already left the premises and was taking shelter in a corner shop, when the accused left the scene and shouted: "Call an ambulance, he's a goner. It's all your fault."
Efforts to resuscitate Mr Daly continued until 6.03 pm when he was pronounced dead at the South Infirmary Hospital.
State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, had told the court that Mr Daly died "fairly quickly" from a single stab wound to the chest, which was 10-11cm in depth.
O'Connor was arrested later that night at his sister's house, where he motioned to his jacket pocket, indicating the presence of a knife.
The court also heard that O'Connor had used the same knife only the night before at another friend's house, when he became paranoid about the entrance of another resident and left a "slash" on the neck of the resident.
One of a family of six, O'Connor was well-known to the gardaí and had a total of 52 previous convictions, 48 of which were criminal.
Along with his three brothers and two sisters, William was brought up by his mother, who coped "with great difficulty" after his father left for England and never returned when the accused was very young.
The accused left school at 14 and became a fisherman for two years and then a plasterer, who, according to his employer, was "extremely hard-working and diligent".
The court heard that O'Connor's behaviour appeared to have stabilised once he met his partner in 1998 and that he had not been in trouble until the stabbing occurred, four years later.
His previous convictions included assault, assault causing bodily harm, vicious wounding, criminal damage, burglary and possession of offensive weapons.
Through his counsel, Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, O'Connor expressed "to the family of the deceased, his extreme repudiation of his conduct on the night in question" and was "acutely remorseful for what he did".
The deceased's brother, Tom Daly, told the court of the family's loss. "Since the death of Richard, our lives have been unrecognisable. I not only lost my only brother, I lost a good friend, and my mother lost a son. Our loss is very painful, but none more so than knowing that Richard's son will grow up not knowing his father."
Mr Justice Paul Carney told the court that he had to take O'Connor's "extraordinary history of convictions for violence" into account. He sentenced the accused to 10 years in prison, including credit for 16 calendar months already served for this charge.
