A SENTENCE of life in prison has been formally imposed by a judge after the family of a man who was murdered described how they were plunged “into a nightmare situation”.
Kevin Coughlan (29), Avondale Drive, Greystones, Limerick, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Francis Greene at Steamboat Quay, Limerick, on November 28th or November 29th, 2009.
Last December, a jury of 10 men and two women returned a majority verdict of guilty after three hours and 25 minutes of deliberation, following a three-week trial at the Central Criminal Court.
As well as the life sentence for murder, Coughlan was given a five-year sentence for the false imprisonment of Mr Greene.
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy handed down a three-year sentence for the production of a knife and a six-month sentence for what the judge described as a “nasty” assault on Roy Finn, who was staying at Mr Greene’s flat at the time.
All the sentences are to run concurrently with the term of life imprisonment and backdated to February 20th, 2010.
The court had heard that the body of Mr Greene (47), a former general operative, was found on a bank of the river Shannon on farming land at Portrine, Co Clare, on February 5th, 2010.
The court also heard that Coughlan had given as a motive that Mr Greene was a rapist but Mr Justice McCarthy said the allegation of rape was “squalid and defamatory in nature”.
Maria Greene, his sister-in-law, read a victim impact statement to the court on behalf of the family.
“Our family was plunged into a nightmare situation that we would not wish on anyone – the lives we had known before were over and nothing would ever be the same again,” she said.
“For the 10 weeks Francie was missing, the guards were concerned for his safety, there were all kinds of rumours in the media and elsewhere, all kinds of suspicions about Francie and what had led to his disappearance.
“We lay awake night after night wondering about Francie. Was he alive somewhere, being held captive, being mistreated or was he in fact dead?
“Desperate for answers, we organised search parties and combed the countryside, fields, rivers, ditches, anywhere we could think of – hoping now that at least we would find a body.
“Finally the news that we had dreaded for so long came, a body had been found and it most likely was Francie.
“His body was identified and the news was given to his heartbroken parents and six brothers.”
Det Garda Sgt Kevin McHugh told Paddy McCarthy SC, prosecuting, that Mr Greene was sheltering two homeless people in his home when Coughlan came in and removed him from the flat.
He said Coughlan was known to gardaí for a number of years and had 23 previous convictions arising out of five court appearances.