Majella Holohan stands over victim impact statement made at end of her son's killer's trial
The parents of the Middleton schoolboy Robert Holohan last night told of their shock and upset at learning of a report in a Sunday newspaper in which their son's killer denied he had engaged in any sexual activity with their son.
Majella Holohan told The Irish Times last night that she and her husband Mark had been deeply upset when they learned through the media of the three-page report from yesterday's Sunday Tribune in which Wayne O'Donoghue gave his version of how he accidentally killed their son. "We were having a bad week anyway and we were very down because Robert was due to make his confirmation on [ last] Thursday. So we were naturally very sad at that.
"All the boys in Robert's class had been very good. They brought flowers to his grave on Wednesday and they have remembered him with prayers at the Confirmation Mass on Thursday. But we were still very low.
"Then out of the blue yesterday morning just as we were preparing to take the children to Mass we learned about this report in the Sunday Tribune. It really shocked and upset us.
"I stand over everything I said in my victim impact statement and the facts are all there on the Garda files," said Ms Holohan, adding that she didn't want to get involved in a dispute over every fact in the case through the media.
An engineering student at Cork Institute of Technology, O'Donoghue of Ballyedmond, Midleton, was acquitted of the murder of 11-year-old neighbour Robert Holohan but pleaded guilty to his manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork in December.
In the first interview he has given since he was sentenced to four years for the manslaughter of Robert Holohan on January 4th, 2005, O'Donoghue told the Tribune that semen found on Robert's hand did not belong to him.
"I am not a paedophile. That semen was definitely not mine and I couldn't believe it when people started to say that there was anything going on between us," said O'Donoghue in an interview conducted at the Midlands Prison where he is held.
O'Donoghue said he was shocked when Robert's mother departed from her prepared victim impact statement at his sentencing at the Central Criminal Court in Ennis on January 24th last and raised the issue of semen being found on Robert's hand.
"I couldn't believe it when Majella Holohan got up and said there was semen on Robert's body during her victim impact statement. I can see why Majella Holohan came out with what she said at the time and I don't hold anything against her for what she said.
"I have no problem doing my time here but there is no way there was anything going on between Robert and myself," he said before going on to express regret for what happened to the boy and the pain he has caused the Holohans.
"I cannot say how sorry I am for everything that happened to them. I will feel sorry for what I did until the day I die. I never stop thinking about what happened. I think about it 24-7. I think about the Holohan family a lot as they have lost Robert out of all this," he said.
O'Donoghue did not describe how he ended up killing Robert but he reiterated that it happened after Robert called to his house at Ballyedmond and that he lost his temper when Robert started throwing stones at his car.