A CO Wicklow man has been jailed for life after he was found guilty of murdering a shopkeeper and father of two in Arklow in November 2009.
Victim impact statements on behalf of the family were read out in court yesterday.
Anthony Farrell (20), a butcher of Marian Villas, Arklow, had denied murdering John Deasy (48) at Brauder’s newsagents on the main street in the town after he had robbed €50 from the till.
Mr Deasy died in the doorway of the newsagents after his shop assistant, Kay O’Connor, screamed for help when Farrell appeared wearing a balaclava, wielding a kitchen knife and demanding money.
In handing down sentence, Mr Justice Paul Butler described it as a “very sad and tragic case, a robbery that led to the violent death of Mr Deasy at the hands of the accused while he was bravely trying to defend his property and Ms O’Connor”.
He said he was particularly struck by Mr Deasy’s youngest daughter who had spoke in her statement of how difficult she found it to pass the shop where her father was killed.
Mr Justice Butler said his own grandparents were buried near the scene, and he too had passed the shop in the last two weeks and had felt a “sadness for Mr Deasy and the victims”.
Referring to Mr Deasy’s love of rugby, the judge said “I will spare him a thought” during Leinster’s Heineken Cup final match today.
A Central Criminal Court jury had found Farrell guilty of the murder following his trial in April. He had pleaded guilty to robbery at the outset of the trial.
The victim impact statements on behalf of Mr Deasy’s ex-wife, Brianne Finn, and their two daughters, aged 13 and 16, were read out for the court during Farrell’s sentence hearing yesterday.
Ms Finn said John’s “untimely death” was a very “difficult transition” for her and her daughters.
She said John was “a good dad” who had always stayed in the lives of his daughters following their divorce.
She described being at the scene the night John died and hoping that it was not someone local who had killed him.
She said her daughters found it very difficult to pass the shop, which they had to every time they visited their grandparents.
Ms Finn described John as a hard and diligent worker who loved rugby and would frequently attend matches with his friends. His youngest daughter said: “I will never see him again, but Anthony Farrell’s parents can see him again.”
In her victim impact statement, Ms O’Connor said her boss was “a good employer, easy to get on with . . . full of life and banter and chat with the customers . . . I didn’t see him as my boss”.
“There is not a second of that evening I do not relive every day,” she said, saying she still sees the knife in her face, hears herself screaming for John and then sees “his head on the doorway looking so pale, his blood flowing down the street”.
The judge sentenced Farrell to the mandatory life imprisonment for murder and to six years for the robbery.
Both sentences were backdated to April 2010, when Farrell first went into custody.
Mr Deasy’s daughters embraced their mother and wept at the back of the courtroom following the sentencing.