A 62-YEAR-OLD man has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife “in a final act of love” to avoid private details of their life being aired at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Thomas Breen killed his wife when he put his hands around her neck during a struggle after she came at him with a knife following an argument. He immediately rang gardaí and reported what had happened.
Breen of Willowvale, Ballybrack, pleaded guilty to the unlawful killing of 56-year-old Carmel Breen at their home on November 7th, 2008. He has no previous convictions.
Insp Eamonn O’Reilly agreed with Deirdre Murphy SC, defending, that there was “an element of terrible bad luck” in that Breen believed he had strangled his wife but in fact the compression had created “interference with the nerves in her neck which caused her immediate death”. He agreed he was an “honourable man” who was “bereft by the loss of his wife”.
Insp O’Reilly told Sean Gillane SC, prosecuting, that Breen told gardaí his wife came home drunk in the afternoon and later went for him with a knife. A struggle ensued in which he grabbed her hands before “in desperation” he put his hands to her neck and she collapsed.
At the time gardaí arrived there was no sign of a struggle but broken crockery had been swept up. A medical examination noted there were remarkably few injuries on Mrs Breen’s body and no signs of asphyxiation. It outlined that collapse and death as a result of neck compression appeared to be rapid.
Breen told gardaí that his wife was a lovely person and that he would always love her.
One of the couple’s three sons, Trevor Breen, read a portion of his victim impact statement to the court. “I have tried to stay impartial in this mess and concentrate on my own family and not take sides,” he read. He said he did not condone what his father had done and there were times he could not speak to him.
“Should my father be accountable? Yes. Should he go to prison? I don’t know, the courts must decide that.”
He said he had been driving towards his parents’ house that afternoon but did not end up visiting them. “If only I had gone in that day, this is what I will have to live with for the rest of my life.”
He said his parents had been married for 40 years but drink had been a destructive force. “They loved each other too much to part but loved to drink too much to give it up.” He continued: “Our mother has been torn from us without a chance to say goodbye.”
Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned sentencing until later this month to allow her read reports handed into court.
Ms Murphy said there could have been a number of legal defences to this charge, such as self-defence, accident or misadventure but Breen had chosen to take responsibility for his actions. She said another reason he had chosen to plead guilty was to avoid having private details aired in court.
“They had a loving and complex relationship. His final act of love is to come in here and plead guilty to manslaughter,” she said. “He is serving his own sentence every day.” She submitted that society did not need to have a man like Breen in prison. She said the circumstances of manslaughter varied widely resulting in penalties ranging from a fine to life imprisonment.
She asked the court to impose a sentence to mark the seriousness of the offence and the huge tragedy for the family but to suspend it entirely taking into account “the actions he has taken to preserve the memory of the wife he still loves”.