A FATHER of three was yesterday sentenced to five years imprisonment for the manslaughter of a 47-year-old man.
Edward Daly (29), Belmont Heights, Ferrybank, Waterford, received the jail term after an assault at a bar in 2005 led to the death of Pat Ryan several weeks later in hospital.
A three-year term for assault causing harm, also handed down at the Circuit Criminal Court in Waterford yesterday, is to run concurrently with the manslaughter sentence.
Mr Ryan (47), St Martin's Avenue, Waterford, was attacked after the Waterford-Cork All- Ireland senior hurling quarter-final fixture in July 2005.
He suffered a cardiac arrest early on July 25th at Waterford Regional Hospital, hours after the assault in J&J's Bar, more commonly known as The Brier Rose, on Fountain Street.
Unknown to Mr Ryan, he had suffered a heart condition with between 70 and 80 per cent blockage of an artery prior to the attack.
He died on September 10th following complications related to pneumonia.
Last Friday, following three hours of deliberations on the fourth day of the trial, a jury found Daly guilty of the manslaughter.
Mr Ryan was attacked because Daly thought that both he and a friend had been looking at his wife, it emerged during the trial.
Because of the blood and substantial swelling to the deceased, his own friend and partner did not recognise him following the assault, it emerged.
Senior counsel for the prosecution Pat McCarthy, yesterday outlined how Daly left the pub after assaulting Mr Ryan and changed his clothes to go drinking again in another local establishment.
Investigating gardaí have still not recovered Daly's clothes, which are thought to have been destroyed.
On the steps of the courthouse after the sentence was handed down, Mr Ryan's partner, Mary Dunphy, said: "It's too late to apologise.
"I don't accept his apology for killing my Pat, the father of my son.
"And I say, may he rot in jail and may his wife go through what we, the family, has gone through."