A 40-YEAR- old man who kicked and stamped a fellow homeless man to such an extent that he was ‘almost unrecognisable’ to family members who identified his body in the morgue has been jailed for life.
Christopher O’Sullivan, who is originally from Co Kerry, had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Timothy ‘Timmy’ Hourihane on October 13th, 2019 at a ‘tented village’ in Mardyke Walk in Cork city.
A Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork heard that Timmy Hourihane, from Kilcrohane suffered severe facial trauma, brain swelling, broken facial bones and battering of teeth in the attack. Mr O’Sullivan carried out the assault with an accomplice who has already been jailed for 11 years in relation to the assault.
Det Supt Michael Comyns said that the assault on a grass verge was so severe that one of the teeth of the victim was found in his stomach at his postmortem.
Mr Hourihane, who was a gifted chef, died of inhalation of blood and cardiac arrest. The father of one also sustained a collapsed lung and severe facial and head trauma arising out of the unprovoked attack.
The assault on the 53 year old occurred near his tent in the makeshift village.
In sentencing Mr Justice Paul McDermott said that Mr O’Sullivan and his accomplice had carried out a ‘shocking, unrelenting and savage assault on a helpless man who lay prone on the ground.’
‘He (O’Sulllivan) has an awful history of offences against the person. In the 2007 attack the accused inflicted catastrophic injuries on a man.
‘This (the death of Hourihane) was the worst kind of killing. It ranks as one of those offences just short of murder.’
Mr Justice McDermott said that Mr O’Sullivan had a childhood which made for harrowing reading. However, he has yet to address his ‘deep rooted issues.’
He said that Mr O’Sullivan had a long history of offending which included ‘egregious offences against the person.’
‘Mr Justice McDermott said that a life imprisonment was an ‘appropriate sentence’ for a person who had such a serious track record of offending.
• Read full court report in next week's Southern Star.
