BACKGROUND:ONE OF the last sightings of Rebecca French was when she collected her daughters – Tiah (9) and Kayah (6) – from their school in Wexford on October 9th, 2009.
Later that day she was beaten to death with golf clubs before an effort was made to conceal the killing by burning her body.
The 30-year-old woman was originally from the Maudlintown area of Wexford town, but had been living with her two children and partner at a house in Mount Prospect in the Clonard area.
After collecting her children from school, Rebecca French went alone to a five-bedroom house at the new Ard na Dara development off the Clonard Road.
There, she was brutally killed. The initial trial of two of the men sentenced yesterday heard details of how the killing occurred.
The prosecution said Ricardas Dilys used a golf club to inflict three fractures on Ms French’s skull, while Ruslanas Mineikas broke five of her ribs by kicking and stamping on her.
A plastic bag was then tied over her head and her hands were bound with cable ties. She had defensive marks on her arms and shoulders, and bruising and lacerations on her face which had possibly been caused by punches.
State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy was unable to say with certainty that Ms French, who had taken alcohol and recreational drugs on the day she was killed, was already dead when she was put in the boot of her Opel Corsa.
The vehicle, with four men inside, was then driven to Codd Lane, where it was found on fire by firefighters at 4.30pm that day.
When the fire was brought under control and the boot opened, the body of Ms French was discovered.
When gardaí went to the scene they found four men – including Dilys, Mineikas and local man Pat O’Connor, who was also sentenced yesterday – walking nearby. An examination of O’Connor’s house at Ard na Dara yielded golf clubs stained with Ms French’s blood.
Dilys and Mineikas offered to plead guilty to manslaughter when being questioned. The DPP charged them with murder. However, during their trial in October, difficulties emerged regarding their initial detention by gardaí.
It emerged that, under new custody rules, the men should have been resting at the time they were being questioned and had made admissions, rendering those admissions inadmissible.
The murder charges were dropped and the men pleaded guilty to impeding the investigation by disposing of and trying to destroy Ms French’s body. O’Connor and a fourth man, Piotr Pasiak, also pleaded guilty to impeding the investigation.
O’Connor and Pasiak were never charged with murder, and no evidence emerged they had taken part in the murder.
All four were due to be sentenced last month. However, Mr Justice Barry White was unhappy with the French family’s victim impact statement on that date. He said it was “xenophobic” and did not display any appreciation for the presumption of innocence or for the judicial function.
Mr Justice White referred the matter to the DPP. The DPP said he should proceed with the sentencing, saying he was of the view Mr Justice White’s sentencing would not be influenced by what he had heard in the statement.