A man was sentenced to seven years' jail yesterday for killing his father over claims that the father had sexually abused his own daughters.
Gary Waters (32) stabbed his father, John, 19 times in the neck and head in a "frenzied" attack, the Central Criminal Court heard.
Waters was tried for his father's murder last year after pleading not guilty. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
The court heard yesterday that Waters had "snapped" on December 29th, 2001, when he heard his father talking about the sex abuse allegations in a "cavalier fashion".
Mr Justice O'Higgins said he accepted that Waters had been enraged by the allegations that his sisters had been abused by their father and he had never been violent before.
"It would appear that you simply lost the use of yourself after certain things were said by your father and that there were allegations made against him," the judge said.
"The allegations have been supported by other people, and there's no doubt you lost control of yourself in circumstances where you believed your father was dealing in an absolutely uncaring and cavalier fashion towards matters of the utmost seriousness."
He suspended 2½ years of the sentence on condition that Waters - a one-time heroin addict and alcoholic - agreed to stay drug-free. The sentence was backdated to June 10th, 2002, to compensate for time served awaiting trial.
During the trial last year two of Waters' sisters told the court that their father had sexually abused them when they were children.
The court heard then that Waters had told gardaí that his father said to him on the night of his death that he had "just fondled them, never penetrated them", prompting his son to lose control.
Det Insp Michael O'Sullivan told the court yesterday that Waters called gardaí immediately after attacking his father at the home they shared in Dublin and admitted what he had done.
Waters nodded to the judge when his sentence was delivered and later joined his family, who were pleased with the outcome.
One of his sisters, Mrs Jacqueline Tunnah, told the court her brother was a good man who had two children who "loved him to bits". "We are behind Gary all the way. He didn't mean to this," she said.
Mrs Tunnah said their father was saying terrible things to him and he would need a lot of counselling to get over it.
"We are just happy with the outcome. We don't want to say anything else," she said outside the court yesterday.