Four men were found guilty yesterday of the kidnap, torture and murder of the 16-year-old girl Mary-Ann Leneghan and the attempted murder of her friend who was shot in the head in Reading, England, but "miraculously" survived.
During an eight-week trial the jury heard how Mary-Ann, whose father Bertie is originally from Co Mayo, and her 18-year-old friend had been abducted, tortured for hours with boiling sugared water and forced to smoke heroin and crack cocaine.
One of the defendants, Michael Johnson (19), had already admitted to murdering Mary-Ann and the attempted murder of her friend, who cannot be named because she was a rape victim.
Adrian Thomas (20), Llewellyn Adams (24), and brothers Jamile (22) and Joshua Morally (23), were found guilty yesterday of murdering Mary-Ann and attempting to murder her friend. All but Adams were found guilty of raping Mary-Ann's friend. All were cleared of raping Mary-Ann.
The jury has yet to reach a verdict on murder and rape charges against a sixth man, Indrit Krasniqi (18).
Both young women were repeatedly told they were going to die during the attack and in gripping testimony Mary-Ann's friend told a packed court room of her last moments in a public park in Reading.
"Mary-Ann was crying. I didn't cry because we were told throughout the whole ordeal we were going to die so by that point I probably already accepted it and I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of crying," the 18-year-old said.
She and Mary-Ann were forced to wear pillow cases over their heads and the young woman told a hushed court how Mary-Ann writhed in agony as she was repeatedly stabbed in the body before her throat was cut.
When police found Mary-Ann's body on May 7th, 2005, in Prospect Park she had suffered 40 stab wounds. Her friend was shot in the forehead and was left for dead.
"They had different roles but we say they were acting together as a joint enterprise to torture and kill these two women," prosecutor Richard Latham had told Reading Crown Court.
The prosecutor said Mary-Ann and her friend had been attacked because Thomas believed the pair had set him up to be robbed of drugs and money. Thomas was stabbed during the robbery, and vowed revenge against the two young women.
The court heard how Mary- Ann and her friend had been driven to a guesthouse where they suffered three hours of torture, repeated rapes and were forced to smoke crack cocaine.