Sentencing due in Brian Murphy case
Three former pupils of one of Ireland’s most prestigious schools were being sentenced today, three-and-a-half years after a teenager was killed in a drunken brawl.
Brian Murphy, 18, was kicked and beaten to death after a student night at Club Anabel in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin.
After a seven-week trial, three of his attackers, 22-year-old Dermot Laide, Sean Mackey and Desmond Ryan, both 23, will be sentenced by Judge Michael White at Dublin’s Circuit Criminal Court.
The trial dominated media headlines for its entire 34 days as four men stood trial for manslaughter and violent disorder in connection with the incident just months after leaving the exclusive Blackrock College.
Laide, from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, was the only one convicted of both manslaughter and violent disorder.
Both Mackey and Ryan were found guilty of violent disorder. Ryan, from Dalkey, Co Dublin was cleared of manslaughter, but the jury failed to agree a verdict on the charge for Mackey, from Foxrock, Co Dublin, who will not face a retrial.
Co-accused Andrew Frame, 22, from Donnybrook, Co Dublin, had his manslaughter charge quashed by the judge due to insufficient evidence and walked free from court after being cleared of violent disorder.
At a sentence hearing for the three men last week, Mr Murphy’s parents launched a stinging attack on the country’s justice system.
His father Denis said the trial had left him with “more questions than answers” as he spoke for the first time about the devastating impact his son’s death has had on the family.
Mr Murphy said his strongest support since Brian’s death on August 31, 2000, had been the prospect of a trial which would reveal the truth, but it had done nothing to establish how he died.
In an emotional address to the court, his mother Mary Murphy expressed frustration the tragedy experienced by her family had been portrayed as if in some way comparable to the families of those in the dock.
“I was not there when Brian was savagely beaten to death,” she said, addressing the three men.
“If I had been there you would not have succeeded in your quest to attack my baby because you would have had to kill me first.”
She too expressed anger at the way the trial had been conducted and said she herself had felt under attack and brainwashed into thinking what happened to Brian had been his own fault.
The prosecution did not allege the attack was planned, but that all the accuseds had chosen to take part.
Edward Comyn, prosecuting, described it as a “short but sustained” attack in which Mr Murphy was left isolated and outnumbered.
A post-mortem revealed he died from severe swelling of the brain and the court heard his head injuries were the result of “considerable violence”.
In mitigation lawyers for all three applied for non-custodial sentences based upon their clients’ previous good character, the long wait they had to endure before the case reached the courts and the media attention it had generated, which had made them all household names.
