A man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for killing a fellow inmate in Mountjoy prison during a row over a TV remote control.
Alan Smith (34) of Ballybough House, Ballybough Road and Buttercup Park, Darndale, both in Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Dublin father-of-one David Byrne on July 3rd, 2009.
However, he pleaded guilty to the 29-year-old’s manslaughter and this was accepted by the State.
The Central Criminal Court had heard that on the evening of June 9th, 2009, Smith hit Byrne over the head with a sock containing two batteries because he thought the victim had taken the TV remote control.
Byrne, who was serving a six-month sentence, was seen by a nurse in the Mater Hospital’s A&E but insisted on being brought back to prison and hour later as he was about to be admitted as an impatient. He also declined to see the prison doctor.
He was found unconscious in his cell the following morning. He remained in a coma for 25 days in the neurosurgical unit of Beaumont Hospital, where he passed away on July 3rd, 2009.
A postmortem exam showed he had suffered a skull fracture, which had torn an artery and caused internal bleeding over a number of hours.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said he was taking into account “the calculated creation of the weapon of attack, the disproportionate response to the perceived grievance” and the effect of the victim’s family.
He sentenced Smith to eight years in prison.
However, he took Smith’s guilty plea into consideration. The court had previously heard that when arrested, he said he was “gutted”and this remorse was also taken into account.
“Matters would probably have turned out differently, had David Byrne not insisted on rejecting medical attention,” added the judge, suspending the final three years of the sentence.
His sentence will not begin until his current five-year sentence for drug possession is completed in 2013.
The dead man's mother, Margaret Byrne, said in her victim impact statement earlier this week that she was the full-time carer of his three-year-old son. She said she had a broken heart since her son’s death.
“David didn’t deserve to die,” she said in a statement read out in court on Monday. “He had his problems but he was an ordinary human being and should have been safe where he was in Mountjoy prison.”