Bulgarian waiter had conviction for manslaughter

A Bulgarian man acquitted in the Circuit Criminal Court last Friday of harassing a married Irish woman had served a prison sentence in Germany for the manslaughter of a woman he had stalked.

The man, Vencislav Venev (39), was arrested by the Garda National Immigration Bureau immediately after his acquittal. He was detained overnight and deported to Sofia on Saturday.

Members of the immigration bureau attended each day of the trial to ensure Venev did not evade them in the event the trial ended abruptly.

They had known of Venev's manslaughter conviction, which was not disclosed to the jury, long before the trial started.

It has now emerged that Venev was convicted of manslaughter in Germany in February 1994. He was sentenced to 12 years for killing the woman.

The sentence was commuted and he was deported from Germany to Bulgaria in 1998. During his trial in Germany the court was told that Venev had stalked his victim. The former waiter was accused in the Circuit Criminal Court of harassing Mary Gilhooley (48), of Cannonbrook Park, Lucan, Co Dublin. He claimed he had had an affair with Ms Gilhooley, a married woman.

In seven days of evidence the jury had heard two contrasting versions of the relationship between Ms Gilhooley and Venev.

In 1999 Ms Gilhooley and her husband met Venev when he worked as a waiter in a restaurant in a Black Sea holiday resort. He befriended them and the couple helped him to come to Ireland.

Ms Gilhooley helped Venev to secure a job and a work permit and let him stay in her house so he could save money on rent, listened to his problems "of which he had many" and generally looked after him like "an adopted child".

She said he started harassing her when she told him to stop contacting her because there was nothing more she could do to help him.

Venev described Ms Gilhooley as a possessive, jealous and controlling woman who dictated his every move in Ireland.