A former soldier was given a five years suspended prison sentence by a judge at the Central Criminal Court today after a jury found him guilty of the manslaughter of the 18 months old son of his first cousin.
John Reilly was convicted by the jury of the manslaughter of 18 months old Oisin Reilly-Murphy in June 2000.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said a relatively small quantity of poitin had "a unique, inexplicable and extraordinary effect" on John Reilly and "he had no control over his body or his actions" and was functioning like an epileptic or diabetic in a bad state of a hypo or hyper.
The judge said that the case had been "unique in the criminal law of this country." He said he was satisfied that a prison sentence would serve no purpose and he sentenced Reilly to five years imprisonment suspended on Reilly's own bond of €1,000, on condition that he keep the peace for five years and that he does not carry a Leatherman(a multi-tool knife used in the killing) or any other similar device.
Reilly showed no emotion as the sentence was passed and after a brief consultation with his lawyers, he hurriedly left the court making no comment.
The jury of six men and six women took seven hours and forty minutes over two days to reach a 10 to 2 majority verdict that Reilly was not guilty of the child’s murder but guilty of manslaughter. The jury was excused from jury service for the rest of their lives by Mr Justice Carney.
John Reilly (32) of Crooksling, Brittas, Co Dublin, had denied the murder of Oisin Reilly-Murphy (18 months) of Manor Kilbride, Co Wicklow on June 5th 2000 at Kiltalown Road, Jobstown, Tallaght, Co Dublin.
Reilly’s defence was that of sane automatism, whereby a person with no history of psychiatric disturbance commits a purposeless act of which there is no memory. Earlier in the trial, an expert medical witness told the court that sleepwalking, night terrors or a combination of both may have caused Mr Reilly’s actions. The sleep disorders could have been trigged by heavy amounts of alcohol.
During the 13 day trial the accused was asked: "Have you accepted with certainty that you killed Oisin?" "Yes" he replied.
Mr Reilly told the jury he had great respect for the child’s parents, his cousin, Mr Tommy Reilly, and partner Ms Grainne Murphy, for the way they had coped since Oisin’s death. "Their ability to talk to me ... to look at me. They’re solid people," he said.
Reilly had told the jury that he drank a glass of poitin after consuming several pints of shandy and Guinness and cans of cider and beer.
The court heard that the infant was stabbed to death in the sitting room of Mr Hugh Reilly’s house (Tommy Reilly’s brother). The accused and the child’s parents had stayed overnight there and had spent the evening drinking and playing cards. John Reilly was home on leave from Iraq, where he had been working as a UN sanctions inspector. Some years earlier, he completed two tours of duty in the Lebanon while a member of the Irish Army Ranger Wing.
Retired Garda Sergeant Patrick Gavin told the court that on the morning of June 5th the child’s mother Grainne Murphy had found John Reilly sleeping in an armchair where the boy had been left sleeping. The child was lying close to John Reilly or partly on him. When the adults in the house had gone to bed Reilly had been left to sleep on a sofa in the same room.
Ms Murphy had taken the child upstairs to his father and it was then that she noticed a gaping wound at the back of his neck. When John Reilly was woken up with difficulty he became distressed, punched a door and was sitting on the stairs sobbing. The bloodied knife was found on the floor.
Sergeant Gavin said that State Pathologist Dr John Harbison had found that Oisin died from bleeding from at least nine wounds to the rear of his neck.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Carney said: "The spectre of poitin runs throughout this case. It is an irony, but no more, that the Poitin Still was one of the pubs in which the accused drank on the material date. Poitin is a highly illegal spirit.
"The accused on the material date had a good deal to drink. That is hardly surprising. He was a man back from Iraq where he was engaged in the use of sanctions. The poitin was produced by his host when the drink ran out. He did not bring it or seek it out.
"There is no getting away from the fact that on the occasion of this tragic event Oisin was casually and inappropriately bedded down for the night," the judge said.
Mr Justice Carney said that the evidence of experts from both the prosecution and defence was that the poitin taken by Reilly had "an extraordinary effect" on his metabolism and the experts found the effects on his metabolism "unique and inexplicable." The events have been unique in the criminal law of this country. I have had to decide matters of principle for the first time and the jury have had to wrestle with facts of the kind no other jury have had to deal with in the history of the State," the judge added.
He said Reilly had been convicted of manslaughter because it was voluntary consumption of alcohol and the verdict of the jury was entirely in accordance with the principles he had opened to them.
He said it had been an extremely difficult case for the jury, for himself, counsel, the police and the parents of Oisin.
"The accused is going to have to live with these events for the rest of his life. I believe that he met the case with dignity," he added.