Wife of man murdered after stag party haunted by feeling he ‘died in fear’

A woman whose husband was beaten to death while he was on a stag night has told the Central Criminal Court of her grief about the fact that he “died in fear”.

After Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo handed down mandatory life sentences to Philip Disney and Sean Carlyle on Friday, Carlyle baited the family of father of two Vincent Parsons and their supporters by smirking and insulting them before being led away by gardaí.

The trial heard that Mr Parsons (34) was murdered by the two men after having too much to drink at a stag party, becoming “messy” and irritating Disney (27) of Donomore Crescent, Tallaght.

He and Sean Carlyle (30), of Donomore Avenue in Tallaght, had denied murdering Mr Parsons at Killinarden Way, near the Killinarden Inn in Tallaght, on the night of August 24th, 2019. However, a jury of six men and six women last month arrived at their guilty verdict after four hours and 48 minutes of their deliberations over two days.

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Mr Parson’s wife, Clare, read from her victim impact statement at the Central Criminal Court on Friday, remembering her husband as her “best friend, soul mate and provider”. She said she had never seen her husband in an altercation and that he saw the good in life and was willing to help “a friend, a colleague or neighbour”.

Mrs Parsons said that when she received the call about the attack on Vincent, she was “in denial” about the fact it had happened to him.

“I couldn’t understand,” she said. “I was in denial that it was him until I arrived and found out it was true. I had to wait for hours to get to see him and that image will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Mrs Parsons said her and their children’s world had “fallen apart” since her husband’s death.

“Coming to court was like living the nightmare over again. But I stayed strong. I promised my husband I would fight for him and I did. But now after the trial, the feeling that I have is that my husband just didn’t die, he died in fear,” she said.

During the trial, Lorcan Staines SC, for the prosecution, told the court the deceased had been drinking for several hours at a friend’s stag do when he had become “messy”, started hugging people and began to irritate others in the Killinarden Inn before coming to the attention of Disney.

CCTV played for the jury showed that there were words between them and, counsel said, Disney became irritated and agitated and could be seen raising his arm and pointing at Mr Parsons before saying something to him. The footage showed Mr Parsons leaving the pub after that interaction and then, once outside, running away.

“Whatever it was that was said, it caused Vincent Parsons to run. He immediately left the pub out the front door and ran left and away from the pub,” said Mr Staines, who told the jury that Mr Parsons ran “as if his life depended on it”.

Counsel told the jury that the two men got into a van and caught up with Mr Parsons and beat him to death on a green area at Killinarden Way. Mr Staines told the jury that the two accused had “acted together each and every step of the way in common design” before and after the killing, which CCTV evidence showed.

A pathologist told the court that Mr Parsons’s cause of death was brain damage due to a shortage of blood flow as a result of a heart attack, which was in turn caused by severe facial injuries and the inhalation of blood.

Mr Parsons’s brother, David, who was in the pub on the night, told the court that Vincent “would never start a fight with anyone”.

“He could be a messy drunk but was never aggressive. There’s not a bad bone in his body,” he said.