A man who attacked a sleeping 88-year-old hospital patient who then died of a heart attack in his bed should receive the “maximum sentence permitted by law”, his family have told a sentencing hearing.
Last December, Dylan Magee (33) was found guilty of the manslaughter of “true gentleman” Matthew Healy by reason of diminished responsibility. He had been charged with the murder of the pensioner on January 22nd, 2023 at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH) in the city.
A trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork heard that the men, who were not known to each other, had been placed in the same hospital ward.
Matthew Healy was taken there on January 13th after he fell out of bed and hit his head at his home in Berrings, Co Cork. His wife Delia had passed away earlier that month.
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Magee, of Churchfield Green, Churchfield in Cork, was admitted to the hospital on January 19th following a referral by his doctor. He was in a hallucinatory state, seeing dead people and hearing voices.
Magee had been on an anti depressant for a month before his hospital admission. He had self medicated with cannabis and claimed to have taken 120 benzodiazepines in the week before his hospital admission. A hospital toxicology screening also showed that he had morphine in his system.
Shortly after 5am on January 22nd, 2023 Magee became agitated and began attacking the elderly hospital patient who was asleep in another bed in the ward.
Magee punched Healy between four and six times. Staff attempted to restrain Magee who yelled “this man ate my son”.
Both the defence and prosecution consultant psychiatrists in the case had agreed that the ability of Magee to refrain from the attack was impaired.
At a sentencing hearing in Cork on Friday, Matthew Healy’s daughter Claire said that hearing her father had died was a “sucker punch in itself”.
“When I heard that he had been attacked by another patient, I was convinced I must be trapped in a nightmare that I would eventually wake from. But I will never wake up from that nightmare,” she said.
“My brother was burdened with the horrendous ordeal of having to formally identify dad’s beaten body in the morgue. I was spared that trauma, but it also meant that I never got to say goodbye.”
She said that her father deserved “to slip away from this world as gently and kindly as the man he was”.
“Not lying in bed terrified, then choking on his own blood after being beaten to death by a man shouting that our dad had eaten his children.
“Words can’t express how traumatising it has been to discover that the attack was carried out by someone who went on a drug binge, suffered delirium from the withdrawal, and then pleaded diminished responsibility.”
Healy described the verdict of guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility as being only suitable for “genuinely ill individuals”.
“We are the product of our choices and I will never accept excuses suggesting the perpetrator was not responsible for his actions. His own life choices led to him punching our dad to death.”
She asked that the court impose the “absolute maximum sentence permitted by law” and said that no member of her family “should ever have to fear crossing paths” with Magee again.
Magee, through his barrister, Brendan Grehan, expressed remorse for the pain caused to the family and friends of the deceased.
Magee was remanded in custody for sentencing on April 17th.
