An engineering student was yesterday sentenced to four years in jail for the manslaughter of his 11-year-old neighbour whose body was found dumped in an isolated glen some 12 miles from his home.
Wayne O'Donoghue (21) had been acquitted of the murder on January 4th, 2005, of Robert Holohan at Ballyedmond, Midleton, by a jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork in December, but he had pleaded guilty to the boy's manslaughter.
Yesterday Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Ennis sentenced O'Donoghue to four years in jail for Robert's manslaughter and backdated it to January 16th, 2005, when he was first taken into custody.
Mr Justice Carney had heard a detailed victim impact statement from Robert's mother, Majella Holohan, outlining the impact that her son's killing has had on herself and her family including her two younger children, Emma (9) and Harry (5).
He also heard an outline of the case from Supt Liam Hayes who led the investigation, which began as a missing person's case when Robert disappeared on January 4th last year, but which was upgraded to murder when his body was discovered at Inch eight days later.
Mr Justice Carney prefaced his sentence by addressing Robert's parents, Mark and Majella, who sat flanked by gardaí from Midleton and saying that the penalty that he was going to impose was going to upset them.
He said he was dealing with a manslaughter case and not a cover-up and he stressed, repeating an earlier assurance he gave O'Donoghue's counsel, Blaise O'Carroll SC, that his sentence was based on the evidence presented in open court and nothing else.
"A manslaughter has been described as the most elastic of crimes because the penalty can range from a suspended sentence to one of life imprisonment," he said, adding that it was his function to impose "a sentence at or between these extremes".
Mr Justice Carney noted that medical evidence had been given by State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy for the prosecution and by chief pathologist of Northern Ireland, Prof Jack Crane, on behalf of the defence.
He said that although they differed in emphasis, they were in broad agreement and their evidence was to the effect that the injuries on Robert's body were light and he believed that these injuries "were at the horseplay end of the scale".
He was highly critical of O'Donoghue's behaviour after Robert's death which saw the CIT engineering student dump Robert's body at Inch Strand and then fail to come forward, but he participated in the search and maintained the deceit.
"After the death, the cover-up was appalling, there can be no excusing what was done," observed Mr Justice Carney. "There can be no mitigating of what was done. The cover-up caused incredible grief and distress to the Holohan family.
"It permitted of the body being mutilated by animals, it tied up the emergency services of the State over a protracted period and caused the people of Ireland as a whole to join in the Holohans' grief.
"It cannot be dismissed as being due to panic by reason of the calculation and deliberation involved," he said, before adding that he was not punishing O'Donoghue expressly in his sentence in respect of the cover-up.
He said that it came into play as part of the impact the victims and he was taking it into account in that regard, though he noted that the State could have brought charges relating to the concealment of Robert's body but chose not to do so.
Mr Justice Carney said that matters changed after Robert's funeral on January 15th and he believed that from the time O'Donoghue confessed to his father on January 16th that he had killed his neighbour, "genuine remorse was in play".
"It is common for family members at the conclusion of cases such as this to complain that the life of their loved one was valued by the court only at the level of the sentence imposed. This is an approach which the courts do not and cannot take.
"Obviously young Robert's life was so precious as to be incapable of measurement in any such terms. It is also the case that nothing I can do or say could in any way assuage the Holohans' grief."
He pointed out that he was governed by directions from the Court of Criminal Appeal that sentencing was not about retaliation or revenge and that it should provide a mechanism for the reintegration into society of a person after serving a jail term.
He also noted that the Court of Criminal Appeal had expressly held that criminal proceedings were not a contest between the family of the deceased and the accused but between the State and the accused.
He was taking account of the effect of the crime on the Holohans as well as the fact that O'Donoghue had no previous convictions, had pleaded guilty to what he was ultimately convicted of and was not expected to re-offend.
"Balancing all of these factors as best I humanly can, I sentence the accused to four years imprisonment to date from his arrest," said Mr Justice Carney to a packed courtroom in Ennis.