Three people have been jailed for killing an English new age traveller and dumping his body in a slurry tank in west Cork.
A fourth men has been jailed for withholding information about the killing.
Jason Thomas (39) of Exeter in England and Scottish mother-of-one Amanda McNab (27) were sentenced to nine years each after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of Gary Bull on September 23rd, 2007.
Following a trial, Fermoy native and mother-of-four Úna Geaney (45) was found not guilty of murder but guilty of his manslaughter at the Dunmanway farmhouse she rented with McNab. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison at the Central Criminal Court today.
Joseph Barrett (25) of Drimoleague, Cork, was sentenced to six months after pleading guilty to withholding information.
The body of Mr Bull, who was originally from Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, but was living in a mobile home at Kilmichael in West Cork, was found in a slurry tank near a farm at Shanlaragh on October 11th, 2007, following a tip-off to gardaí.
Three weeks earlier, a weekend-long birthday party had taken place at the house.
Mr Bull had been back and forth to the party at which alcohol and drugs were consumed. He arrived for the final time on the Sunday evening, was drunk and argumentative and got into a scuffle with Geaney.
He went out to his 4x4 and started his petrol-powered concrete saw, with which he had attacked his ex-girlfriend a fortnight earlier. He was on the way back to the house when a guest hit him over the head with a plank of wood and took the saw.
He recovered and was back in the house drinking when he had another scuffle with Geaney and tried to leave. However, she had hidden his keys down her bra.
Geaney, McNab and Thomas claimed they were afraid he would return with others to seek retribution if they let him go. The other guests were sent to a bedroom.
McNab and Thomas hid Mr Bull’s vehicle in a laneway and were returning to the house when they met Geaney and the victim in the front yard.
There was another scuffle between Geaney and Mr Bull, and Thomas gave Geaney her own wooden mallet and told her to hit him.
She hit him on the legs and handed the mallet back to Thomas, who continued the assault on Mr Bull’s head.
McNab got a knife but it bent as she tried to stab Mr Bull. No stab wounds were found on the victim, who died from blunt force trauma to the head.
At one point, a guest came from the bedroom and saw Thomas kneeling over Gary Bull with the mallet held over his head, saying: “I can’t believe he’s still alive.”
Geaney later ran into the house and told the other guests that Mr Bull was dead and that they needed to plant a tree. “Where a bad man stands, a tree should be planted,” she said.
Geaney burned the mallet, the body was dumped in the slurry tank and Thomas headed for England, where he was caught last year.
Thomas has previous convictions, including for possession of an article with a blade.
Geaney, whose son had died of a drug overdose in the farmhouse, had convictions for assault and possession of knives.
Barrett had convictions for assault causing harm and violent disorder.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said Mr Bull was a reliable, hard worker and that it was his failure to turn up to work early that raised concerns for his safety.
He said that although he had been making a nuisance of himself, he had been beaten into submission and was trying to leave when beaten to death.
“He suffered the indignity of his body being dumped in a slurry pit,” said the judge.
He said he accepted the prosecution’s submission that the gratuitous violence meant this crime was at the higher end of the manslaughter scale. He backdated all sentences to the dates each defendant went into custody.