Lengthy silence greets verdict

REACTION:ALMOST TWO years and eight months after 14-year-old Melissa Mahon went missing in Sligo, her 44-year-old neighbour, the father of her closest friend, the man who said she called him "Dad" and who continually criticised the authorities for their failure to care for her, was yesterday convicted of her manslaughter.

After five weeks of evidence and 5½ hours of deliberation, the verdict came with unexpected speed. Just before lunch, the jury foreman was asked had the jurors reached a verdict and he said no.

Mr Justice Barry White then said he would be giving them directions in relation to a majority verdict on their return. In the event, the knock on the door arrived even before the judge himself had returned to court.

The verdict was greeted with total silence. The defendant, Ronnie McManus, his swathe of tattoos and T-shirt covered for the first time by a casual jacket, was impassive.

Frederick and Mary Mahon, Melissa’s parents, sitting with eight of her siblings on two benches and watched over by Garda Pat Conway, sat perfectly still. The only sign of emotion was among the jurors, where two women were observed to be in tears.

After a lengthy pause, Mr Justice White, describing the case as “distasteful, sordid and squalid”, told the jurors he proposed to discharge them from further jury service for life if they so wished.

After agreeing a sentencing date, he turned to Isobel Kennedy for the prosecution and said he would be seeking her assistance in asking the DPP to come up with a list of cases “similar to this . . . in particular in relation to the unlawful killing of 14-year-olds”.

“It seems to fall into involuntary manslaughter,” offered defence counsel Brendan Grehan helpfully. “Or they weren’t satisfied beyond reasonable doubt,” retorted the judge.

As McManus left the court in handcuffs, the Mahon family declined to comment and made their way towards the Sligo train. However, there is a possibility that aspects of this case will come to haunt others long after McManus is sentenced.

Problems with the video recording system led to a hearing within a trial yesterday as technicians were summoned to account for a systems failure which left nothing but a snowy screen where there should have been a video-link interview requested by the jury. And – as Mr Justice White put it – a jury “twiddling its thumbs” from noon the previous day.

It was a problem hitherto unsuspected within the system so may apply in other cases where such evidence has not been tested.