A Dublin man who was yesterday sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for manslaughter had to be restrained by prison officers in the Central Criminal Court after shouting at the dead man's family.
Terence Keogh (36), Pine Brook, Blanchardstown, admitted the manslaughter of John Murphy (29), Carne Court, Hartstown, Dublin, at Sheepmoor Grove, Blanchardstown, on April 15th, 2002.
Imposing a sentence of 10 years and refusing leave to appeal, Mr Justice Paul Carney said he took account of the fact that the attack with a pick-axe handle had lasted for some five minutes.
The partner of Mr Murphy told the Central Criminal Court that her four-year-old daughter asked her every day "when is daddy coming back".
Michelle Mahony made an emotional victim impact statement to the court about the "devastating" loss of her partner, Mr Murphy, two years ago.
Prosecuting senior counsel Paul Coffey told the court that after midnight that night, Keogh had used a pick-axe handle, inflicting fatal injuries on Mr Murphy, who had been pronounced dead at the James Connolly Memorial Hospital some hours later.
Det Sgt Liam Kelly of Blanchardstown Garda station told the court that a row had broken out in the Buddha bar across the road from the Blanchardstown shopping centre.
This had spread to the street, where Mr Murphy and his brother, Mark, had seemed to be "getting the better of the accused".
Keogh took a pick-axe handle from his car and chased the Murphy brothers by foot and then possibly by car to Sheepmoor Grove, a housing estate about 550 metres (600 yards) away, where the brothers had tried to get into a house, but had been cornered.
The pick-axe handle had been used to strike Mr Murphy around the head, an attack which had lasted for five minutes, Mr Coffey said.
He died from a "laceration to the brain" and haemorrhaging "due to multiple blows to the head consistent with a pick-axe handle".
The court heard that Keogh had 36 previous convictions, including burglary, larceny and assault causing bodily harm.