Life for stabbing youth to death outside pub
Christopher O'Callaghan (21), of O'Malley Park, Southill, Limerick had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Michael Fitzpatrick (19), of Yeats Avenue, Kincora Park, Southill, outside the Olympic Arms pub on Roxborough Road on June 25, 1999.
Mr Fitzpatrick died in hospital from multiple stab wounds to his body.
After deliberating for four hours, a jury unanimously convicted O'Callaghan.
Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins told him: "The jury having found you guilty, I have to impose the only sentence prescribed and permitted by law, and that is life imprisonment".
Christopher O'Callaghan's brother Michael "Blackie" O'Callaghan is already serving a sentence for the murder of Johnny Collins in Limerick in 1994.
The mother of Mr Fitzpatrick said yesterday, "When Mikey was killed that night we had an automatic life sentence to serve. We've had to fight every bit of the way for justice for Mikey, but for the sake of my three other children, I'm glad that justice was done."
The 10-day trial heard that O'Callaghan stabbed Mr Fitzpatrick during a fight after closing time at the Olympic Arms pub.
There was no apparent motive either for the fight or the stabbing and no murder weapon was ever found. O'Callaghan denied that he had pulled a knife.
The trial was marked by allegations that O'Callaghan's former solicitor, John Devane of the Crescent, Limerick, had advised his client to lie to gardai.
In legal argument in the absence of the jury, Mr Devane admitted that he told his client to answer "I can't remember, but if I do I'll tell you" to questions put to him after his arrest on July 1, 1999.
Replies to five out of 57 questions in one session were subsequently called as prosecution evidence against O'Callaghan.
Immediately after sentence was passed, counsel for the accused sought leave to appeal on the grounds that the judge had erred in admitting the questions and answers at the centre of the legal controversy to the trial, had erred in allowing the case to go to the jury and on the basis that the jury verdict was perverse. Mr Justice O'Higgins refused leave to appeal.
- Rita O'Reilly
