A man stabbed another man in the back with a butcher's knife and then went home and said a prayer for his victim, believing he had killed him, Galway Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Tommie Quinn (21), Parkmore Estate, Tuam, Co Galway, pleaded guilty to assaulting Thomas Cooney following a party in Tuam in November 2004.
Quinn, who lives with his partner and their baby son at his mother's address, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, with the last nine months suspended by Judge Raymond Groarke.
Garda Michael Hehir told the court that Mr Cooney had a grievance with Quinn whom he believed had stolen his car while both had been attending another party the previous month.
Words had been exchanged between them a number of times. The matter came to a head when they had had a lot of drink at the party on the date of the stabbing.
They were leaving the party at about 5.40am when a scuffle broke out on the street.
Quinn ran back into the house and grabbed a carving knife from the kitchen, described in court as a butcher's knife, and ran out on to the street again where Mr Cooney was waiting to finish the fight.
Garda Hehir said Mr Cooney came at Quinn, but when he saw the knife in his hand, he ran down the street. Quinn ran after him and caught up with him about 20 yards away stabbing him in the back. Mr Cooney, a father of two, fell to the ground and was taken to hospital bleeding heavily from a single stab wound.
Following his arrest, Quinn admitted the stabbing, but said Mr Cooney had run into the knife when he had stopped. He panicked when he saw his victim's legs twitching as he lay on the ground. He hopped over a nearby cemetery wall and hid the knife behind a nearby shop.
Quinn then went home and said a prayer for Mr Cooney, because he believed he had stabbed him to death, Garda Hehir added.
The court heard Quinn had a number of previous convictions for public order offences and two for assault.
John Hogan, defending, said his client had an alcohol problem and most of his previous convictions were drink related. Quinn had since stopped drinking and was the sole carer of his baby son during the day as his mother worked and his partner was in full-time education.
Mr Hogan put it to Mr Cooney that he had four convictions for assault himself and had been picking on his client in the weeks preceding this assault.
Judge Groarke said he had serious concerns about the type of man he was dealing with.
He observed that Quinn had "hotly pursued" his victim and a worrying aspect of the case was that he could have stopped what he was doing from when he ran back into the house to get the knife until he ran down the road after his victim and stabbed him.