BY OLIVIA KELLEHER
A 40-YEAR-old man who kicked and stamped a fellow homeless man to such an extent that his body was ‘almost unrecognisable’ to family members, has been jailed for life.
Christopher O’Sullivan, originally from Co Kerry, had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Timothy ‘Timmy’ Hourihane, from Kilcrohane, 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 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 eleven 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 post-mortem.
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.
Members of the public went to the assistance of Mr Hourihane who had been badly beaten. However, he died a short time later at Cork University Hospital.
Mr O’Sullivan was originally due to stand trial for murder. However, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year after he was informed that such a plea was acceptable to the State.
A victim impact statement from Eliot Hourihane, the only son of Timmy Hourihane, was read in court.
Mr Hourihane, who lives abroad, said he couldn’t begin to explain how ‘angry and sad’ the violent passing of his father had made him.
‘You don’t get those kinds of injuries my dad sustained if they weren’t trying to end his life. I pray that the person involved is dealt with severely as he has left a son without a father, a mother without a son and siblings without their brother. As an only child, I feel like I need to fight for him (Timmy Hourihane) until the end.
‘It won’t bring him back, but hopefully with the help of the court we can get some form of justice for him. My family will never be able to move on. But these two people (the persons responsible for the manslaughter of Hourihane) will move on like he was nothing.’
A victim impact statement from the family of the deceased was also read into the record. Mr Hourihane’s two siblings and his sister-in-law were present in court.
In their statement the family said that their lives ‘changed instantly and irrevocably’ when Timothy’s head ‘was kicked in and he was left for dead’ by two violent people in a ‘unprovoked’ and ‘brutal attack.’
‘We cannot understand how a human being could do this. For us it is a life sentence.’
Siobhan Lankford, barrister for the prosecution, said that the crime fell into the ‘highest category of manslaughter.’
Roisin Lacey, for the defence, said that her client wanted to offer his sincere apology to the family of Mr Hourihane for his role in the death of their loved one.
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 said that Mr O’Sullivan and James Brady had used their shoes and feet as ‘lethal weapons’.
‘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 a life imprisonment was an appropriate sentence for a person who had such a serious track record of offending.
‘Unless his issues are addressed, he will have a high risk of re-offending. This was wanton violence.’
He added that Mr O’Sullivan was the more active participant in the attack on Mr Hourihane and that there was a difference in the age and convictions, which meant that the defendant merited a higher sentence than his co-accused.
In April of last year, James Brady of Shannon Lawn in Mayfield, Cork was jailed for 11 years for the manslaughter of Mr Hourihane.
