An epileptic who accidentally killed his drunk nephew when he stabbed him during a scuffle after a family funeral has received a two-year suspended sentence from Judge Frank O'Donnell.
Patrick Daly was making sandwiches with a kitchen knife when an extremely intoxicated Mr Mark Daly demanded to be let into the house.
He was refused entry, but after forcing his way into the house he attacked his uncle.
In the altercation that followed the knife that Patrick was holding penetrated Mark's lungs and chest, and he died in hospital a short time later.
The accused voluntarily went to the Garda station and admitted stabbing the man.
While there, he suffered an epileptic seizure and required medical treatment.
Gardaí accepted that the stabbing was a tragic accident and that the knife was held out in self-defence.
Patrick Daly (45), from Drumalee Road, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the manslaughter of Mr Mark Daly (28), on July 27th, 2001.
Judge O'Donnell said he had to mark the seriousness of the charge, but sometimes a charge of manslaughter was unjustified, and this could be one of those cases. "I accept that there was no malice in what occurred, and any culpability arose from the fact that he had a knife in his hand at the time," he said.
"The line between manslaughter and murder is usually a very thin one, but in this case I think the line between manslaughter and an accident is very thin. I must accept the very fair evidence of the prosecution that there was no intention to harm the deceased and I will deal with it on that basis," he concluded.
Det Insp John McMahon told Mr Patrick J. McCarthy SC, prosecuting, that Mr Mark Daly was the son of the accused man's sister, but in terms of the way they were brought up, they were practically brothers.
Patrick's brother, Richard, had just died from a heart attack, and some members of the family were in the house on the night trying to plan the removal when Mark turned up very drunk.
The deceased, who had been living in England for a time, was warned not to travel for the ceremony because three years earlier his twin brother had died and some altercation had taken place at that funeral whereby the coffin was upended.
He forced his way into the house and went straight for the accused, resulting in the stab wounds from which he later died. Patrick was in a very distraught state when gardaí interviewed him and said he wanted to die so he could be with "Dickie", his deceased brother.
Det Insp McMahon said Patrick had an epileptic seizure in the Garda station but fortunately well-trained gardaí were able to give him the appropriate medical attention.
Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for Daly, said his client was involved in a hit-and-run accident in 1987 and suffered serious head injuries. It was as a result of this that he contracted epilepsy. In 1988 he received a three-year sentence for a robbery, committed as a result of his condition.
He had immediately admitted his role in this incident and indicated from a very early stage that he would be pleading guilty. He was extremely remorseful, but gardaí accepted that it was an accident and if anything he had held out the knife in a self-defence manner.
Mr O'Higgins added that nothing would be served by sending his client to prison. There was no animosity within the family against him, and if anything jailing him would make an already tragic case even more so.
He had already been severely punished and he would have to live with the death of his nephew for the rest of his life.