A DUBLIN man who killed a father of three, by beating him with a hurley in a road-rage incident in 2010, has been sentenced to 12 years in jail at the Central Criminal Court.
Karl Donohoe (31), Boulevard, Bealing Village, Tyrrelstown, was charged with the murder of British national Raymond Bates (49) at the junction of Tritonville Road and Sandymount Road on September 30th, 2010.
He pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Bates at the Central Criminal Court on February 20th last. This plea was accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Delivering sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Paul Carney said the “savagery” of the beating administered by Donohoe and the fact he had appointed himself “sheriff and enforcer” over Mr Bates’s “bad and drunken driving” merited a sentence of 12 years.
He said he took into account words spoken by Donohoe in the aftermath of the case and the “devastating effect” the incident had on Mr Bates’s family. There were shouts of “yes” and loud applause followed by sobbing from the public benches as Mr Justice Carney delivered his sentence.
Mr Justice Carney said that having regard to Donohoe’s plea of guilty and evidence that his employer was willing to rehire him on completion of his sentence, he would suspend the final two years of the sentence.
Mr Justice Carney said the “only figure” on the warrant accompanying Donohoe from the court would be one of 12 years and to describe the sentence as anything else would be a “misdescription”.
He said this was the second case involving a road-rage homicide he had dealt with “in a very short space of time” and such cases “outrage the community in a way no others do”. He knew this because he received “hate mail” in the aftermath of another case.
The court heard Donohoe hit Mr Bates on the head with a hurley after an argument over Mr Bates having tailgated Donohoe’s car. Mr Bates died from blunt force trauma to the head.
There was evidence that Donohoe told gardaí: “I hope he f***ing dies, he got what he deserved.” He said he “could have annihilated” Mr Bates but did not, adding that “he got away lightly”.
Outside the court, Mr Bates’s sister-in-law Vivienne Sanderson said Donohoe had not only destroyed the Bates family, but also his own.
During the sentence hearing, there was evidence that Mr Bates had met friends in a pub. CCTV footage showed he drank up to 10 pints of Guinness in a six-hour period before driving his Mitsubishi Pajero. He tailgated Donohoe’s Toyota RAV4, in which there were two passengers, including his 18-month-old daughter.
There was evidence the argument occurred after Mr Bates tailgated Donohoe’s 4x4 along the road when he did not move away from a set of traffic lights quickly.
CCTV from the area and Dublin Bus was used in the investigation.