A Dublin man was convicted of murder and jailed for life yesterday in the Central Criminal Court.
John Cleary (24), St Mark's Avenue, Clondalkin, Dublin, admitted beating and then fatally stabbing Mr Kenneth Foley (45) at Jamestown Court, Inchicore, Dublin, in 1999, but he pleaded not guilty to murder. Mr Foley, a single man with an address at Tyrconnell Road, Inchicore, was found with his throat cut at Jamestown Court in the early hours of January 15th, 1999.
Cleary claimed provocation, but the jury rejected that defence.
A second man is wanted by gardaí in connection with the incident. Don Knowles allegedly joined in the kicking of Mr Foley and was subsequently charged with serious assault. However, he jumped bail and skipped the jurisdiction.
It was Cleary's second trial on the murder charge. In December 2001, a jury convicted him of the robbery of a gold signet ring and a watch from Mr Foley on the night he died, but it failed to reach a verdict on whether the killing was murder or manslaughter.
Yesterday, after deliberating for four hours, the retrial jury unanimously found him guilty of murder. Mr Justice O'Higgins backdated the life sentence to February 1st, 2002, the date Cleary was sentenced to 3½ years for the robbery.
The officer in charge of the Garda investigation, Supt Declan Coburn, previously revealed that within 24 hours of the murder, Cleary was involved with others in another serious, unprovoked assault on a 19-year-old in Dublin city centre. In that assault, the victim suffered haemorrhaging of the eye and lost four front teeth. Cleary was later jailed for a year for his part in that attack.
When Supt Coburn went to Cleary's parents' home in Clondalkin the following morning, they readily agreed to show the gardaí where their son was.
His father, Mr Aidan Cleary, brought Supt Coburn to his daughter's house, where Cleary was found lying on the living room sofa. His mother, Ms Mary Cleary, wept silently in court yesterday as the jury's murder verdict was announced.
The court heard that he admitted to gardaí that he waited outside a flat in Jamestown Court where he had been drinking with three other men, including Mr Foley. When Mr Foley emerged, he began beating and kicking him. Don Knowles joined in the kicking, and Cleary then began swinging at Mr Foley with a kitchen knife he had taken from the flat. When Mr Foley fell to the ground, Cleary cut his throat.
Deputy state pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy found that Mr Foley was "highly intoxicated" at the time of his death and would have been incapable of defending himself.