A MURDER victim’s family shouted at his killer in the Central Criminal Court yesterday after he was sentenced for stabbing another man.
Martin Toland, of Walkinstown Park, Dublin, was convicted in January of murdering Alan Nolan (28), at his Ballyfermot home in September 2007, and is now serving a life sentence in Mountjoy Prison.
Yesterday he was handed a seven-year concurrent sentence for recklessly or intentionally causing serious harm to James Carroll (30), whom he stabbed through the heart on the same date.
As he was led away, members of Mr Nolan’s family shouted “murderer” and “we hope you rot in hell”. Mr Nolan’s mother Marian shouted “why did you never say sorry?”
Toland’s family responded by saying “there are no winners here”.
Mr Carroll was also present in court. In his victim impact statement, he said he would never recover from the physical and mental scars Toland had inflicted on him.
Mr Nolan’s mother also took to the witness stand to deliver her victim impact statement. Referring to the accused, she said: “You have never shown any remorse. You have condemned us to a life without our son, something I can never forgive you for.”
During the trial, the court heard that the three men had spent the evening drinking and playing poker and PlayStation games at Mr Nolan’s apartment.Toland later claimed to gardaí that Mr Nolan pulled a knife after they had argued. But he said he managed to wrestle the knife off him and used it to frighten the men as they advanced towards him. He said he could only remember the knife going in once or twice into Mr Nolan, and didn’t remember stabbing Mr Carroll.
Mr Nolan was stabbed five times. Mr Carroll sustained life-threatening stab wounds.
In his evidence, Mr Carroll said the two men had gone upstairs to sort things out after they’d fought, while he remained in the living room. But after hearing screams he ran upstairs to find Toland pinning Mr Nolan to his bed who was screaming “get that scumbag out of my house”.
He said Toland went to leave, and was holding the knife in front of him, but after Mr Nolan screamed at him again he seemed to fly into a rage and stabbed Mr Carroll to get back into the house and at Mr Nolan.
Toland’s defence counsel had asked Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy to take into consideration that Toland dialled 999 and waited for the emergency services to arrive. He said Mr Carroll would not have survived if he had not called the ambulance.
Mr Justice McCarthy said there had been no premeditation in Toland’s actions. The judge said he accepted the accused had shown true remorse and he also had to take into account Toland’s serious medical problems.
However, he also had to consider the fact that Mr Carroll was psychologically affected by the very serious offence committed against him.
He sentenced Toland to seven years to run concurrent with his life sentence and refused leave to appeal.