Galway man gets life for murder of Swiss student

A Galway man has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Swiss teenager Manuela Riedo in October 2007.

Gerald Barry (29), of Rosan Glas, Rahoon, Galway, was given the mandatory sentence this morning by Mr Justice Barry White at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.

Barry strangled Ms Riedo after having sex with her on a pedestrian walkway known as "The Line", close to the Lough Atalia area of Galway city on October 8th, 2007.

Ms Riedo (17) had only arrived in Ireland three days prior to that to study English at a language school in the city.

The jury of six men and six women took just two hours and 38 minutes to bring in a murder verdict having retired overnight.

They also found Barry guilty of stealing Ms Riedo's camera and a mobile phone.

Manuela's parents Hans Peter (53) and Arlette (50) welcomed the verdict afterwards and expressed a desire that Barry would spend the rest of his life behind bars. They described him as the "devil".

They thanked the Irish people for their support and for those who had sent flowers and cards to them along with the Garda and staff at the Swiss embassy.

In an emotional victim impact statement read out in court, Mr Riedo said their only child's death had "taken the future away from us".

"I will never lead my daughter as a bride to the altar, and my wife will never knit baby clothes for a grandchild, and we won't have anyone to look after us when we are old," he said.

Mr Riedo recalled how Manuela's trip to a language school in Ireland was her first trip without her parents abroad.

"We had heard only good things about Ireland and thus we had no misgivings about sending her to this beautiful country," he said.

Wearing a light blue shirt which was not tucked in and a dark blue tie, Barry did not react to the verdict.

Along with the life sentence, Mr Justice Barry White gave Barry two five-year sentences to run concurrently for the theft of Ms Riedo's camera and mobile phone.

Detective Superintendent PJ Durkin told the court that Barry had been in "trouble with the law" from an early age and had a long list of convictions.

They included five years for violent assault arising out of the death of a man in Eyre Square in July 1996, a vicious assault which completely blinded an elderly man who was living at home for which he got two years and a sexual assault conviction arising out of a complaint by Barry's ex-partner.

Mr Justice Barry White told Barry: "I trust you have not been unmoved by the evidence of Mr Riedo of the devastating effect of your criminal behaviour on the family of your victim."

The judge acknowledged that Barry came from a dysfunctional family, but he told him "you clearly have a substantial criminal record that involves violent behaviour".

He said he would give the five-year concurrent sentences for theft because of the "aggravated" nature of the way that he had taken Ms Riedo's mobile phone and camera.