Family mourns 'caring and dignified' Sara

BRIAN McBARRON said his girlfriend Sara Neligan had the whole world to live for. But when she tried to leave him, he took that world from her.

Sara (33) was murdered in an apartment in Dublin’s Pearse Street in June 2007 and yesterday McBarron (26) pleaded guilty to the crime.

Her fate was sealed when she met McBarron in Waterford months earlier. He was originally from Arklow and had a chequered history. He had five previous convictions including driving offences, criminal damage and possession of a flick knife.

He was also living under the threat of prison, following a conviction for assault causing serious harm. He received a two-year sentence, suspended for five years. Had he served that sentence without remission, he would have been released six months after the murder.

Sara Neligan came from a very different world. The daughter of pioneering heart surgeon and co-founder of the Blackrock Clinic Maurice Neligan, she was a staff nurse at the Mater hospital.

She was the middle child of seven in a close-knit family who described her as “a beautiful, kind, caring and dignified young woman” who left cherished memories. Not long after meeting McBarron, she began living with him in the apartment where she met her death.

Gardaí might not have been alerted to her murder so quickly were it not for the persistence of her close friend Martina Kehoe.

About four weeks before her death, Martina noticed bruising on her friend’s arms. And, in the days leading up to her death, Sara told Martina she wanted to leave McBarron. They agreed that she would come to stay with Martina in Wexford but would not tell him she was moving out. She would take the train to Gorey on June 14th and arrive at 9.30am.

When she didn’t arrive, Martina grew worried and rang Sara’s mobile phone but got no reply. She rang again and McBarron answered the phone, saying Sara had a stomach upset and had gone to see a doctor.

This aroused Martina’s suspicions as her friend never went anywhere without her phone. She contacted Pearse Street Garda station and two gardaí were dispatched to the apartment. However, they could not gain access and left. Martina persisted and rang the Garda station twice more that day.

At 8pm, gardaí gained access to the apartment and McBarron told them “I have done a horrible thing”. Sara’s body was lying on the bed, stabbed in the chest and neck. Asked why he did it, McBarron told gardaí: “I wanted to die so I wanted to take her with me . . . because she’s mine.”

The court heard he had substance abuse problems and had tried to take his own life before the event. After the murder he bought a blue nylon rope and fashioned a noose over the bed which was still in place when gardaí arrived.

His guilty plea yesterday morning removed the need to swear in a jury for a lengthy trial. But it was still traumatic for the Neligan family who filled two rows of seats in the Central Criminal Court. Some family members bowed their heads and cried when Det Sgt Brian Duffy told how gardaí had discovered the body.

McBarron looked pale as he sat beside his mother whose eyes filled with tears several times during the hearing.

Her son told the court that he would give up his life for Sara’s if he had the chance. In a letter read out by his counsel Richard Kean, he apologised for his “brutal and thoughtless crime” and expressed the hope that his imprisonment might ease the Neligan family’s pain. “I pray to God for forgiveness,” he said.

His mother’s sobs could be heard as the Neligan family rose to leave the court.