A Co Limerick father was yesterday jailed for one year at the Central Criminal Court for the manslaughter of his son.
Mr Justice McKechnie sentenced Gerry Connell (54), Clyduff West, Lisnagry, Co Limerick, to a total of four years' imprisonment, but suspended the last three.
After seven-and-a-half hours deliberating, a jury last week found the accused not guilty of murder, but guilty of the manslaughter of his son, Barry Connell (25), at the family home on June 9th, 1999.
Sentencing Connell, Mr Justice McKechnie said this was "an absolute tragedy for the Connell family" and he had "nothing but sympathy for those involved who were left to deal with it".
He said in suspending three years of the sentence, he had taken into account a number of mitigating circumstances, including the genuine remorse of the accused, his compliance with the Garda investigation at all times and the fact that he had no previous convictions.
"He will have to live with what he has done, but one cannot resort to firearms," the judge said.
"There must be some other way to respond to a situation, even one as grim as the Connell family lived with and that Gerry Connell faced on this fateful evening.
"I am absolutely convinced that if there was no shotgun in the house Barry Connell would not have been killed."
During the trial, the jury heard Barry had been diagnosed as suffering from acute manic psychosis. A month before the shooting, his father had signed him into a psychiatric unit, but he was back home within days.
A psychological assessment of Connell indicated he suffered from flashbacks and guilt about what he had done to his son and his inability to protect his wife from Barry prior to her death in April 1999 from cancer.
Justice McKechnie allowed for a one-month stay on the order for Connell, who will begin his sentence on November 16th.
The judge agreed to a recommendation from defence counsel that the jail term be served in Limerick prison.
Two of Connell's daughter's were in court to hear the sentence passed.