Two Dublin men who caused the death of a Limerick man by beating him at a filling station on Usher's Quay near Heuston Station, Dublin have been jailed for five and three years respectively.
William McDonnell (39), of Mary Aikenhead House, Basin Street, who was found guilty on May 24th last by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury of the manslaughter of Mr Thomas Moloney Jnr (26) from Cosgrave Park, Limerick, was jailed for five years.
Francis Kenny (43), also of Basin Street, who pleaded guilty on April 11th last to the same charge, got three years.
Both men were attacked by supporters of the victim and his family, when being brought through the Chancery Place gate from the court to the holding cells nearby.
McDonnell was knocked to the ground and thumped by several young men before prison officers frantically succeeded in separating them and getting him away.
Kenny was less severely assaulted when taken out of the court because some of the gang had gone towards the front of the Four Courts believing he was being brought in that direction. Officers pushed away other potential attackers and got him safely away.
The melee happened just after the victim's father Mr Thomas Moloney Snr held an impromptu media conference in which he held up phoptographs of the victim and another son, Alan, who died in a hit and run accident in 1995. He complained the leniency of the sentences and said that justice had failed his family.