Brian Murphy's family 'brutalised by trial'

A seven-week trial did nothing to establish how Brian Murphy was killed in a savage and drunken attack, his father claimed today.

Denis Murphy, whose 18-year-old son was kicked and beaten to death outside a Dublin nightclub said the trial had left him with “more questions than answers” as he spoke for the first time about the devastating impact his son’s death has had on his family.

At a sentence hearing for three men convicted in connection with his death, Brian Murphy’s parents launched a stinging attack on the country’s justice system.

Denis and Mary Murphy told Dublin’s Circuit Criminal Court of the pain and anguish they had endured since his death at a student night at Club Anabel in the Burlington Hotel, Dublin, on August 31, 2000 and more recently during the trial, held in the full glare of the media spotlight.

Convicted Dermot Laide, Desmond Ryan and Sean Mackey, all former pupils of one of the country’s most prestigious schools, listened with heads bowed as the parents described the moment they were told their son was dead and how they felt brutalised by the criminal justice system.

All three men stood trial for violent disorder and manslaughter just months after leaving the exclusive Blackrock College.

Laide, 22, from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan was the only one convicted of both charges.

Mackey, 23, from Foxrock, Co Dublin and Ryan, 23, from Dalkey, Co Dublin were both found guilty of violent disorder. Ryan was cleared of manslaughter but the jury failed to agree a verdict on Mackey’s manslaughter charge. He will not face a retrial.

Denis Murphy said his strongest support during the past three-and-a-half years had been the prospect of a trial which would reveal the truth.

“Events over the past seven or eight weeks have changed all that,” he said.

“There are now more questions than there are answers. There must be several people out there, or even in this court room, who saw everything that happened that night and can answer the questions that remain.

“There were at least six people involved but only one conviction directly relating to his death.

"Where are the others, where are they and who knows about it all?”

Mr Murphy criticised the trial process:

“As a result of this trial, there is a gaping wound and I am not sure where we go from here.”

Brian’s mother Mary also described her anger at the way the trial had been conducted over the last two months.

“I have felt under attack in this courtroom over the last seven weeks,” she told the court.

“All the people here had a voice. Brian and our family had no voice.

“I have felt brainwashed into thinking that what happened to Brian was his own fault. The repetitive nature of the evidence has desensitised us.”

She said the fact her family had been forced to revisit their pain three and a half years later was “unacceptable“.

Mrs Murphy expressed frustration that the tragedy experienced by her family had been portrayed as if in some way comparable to the families of those in the dock.

“I was not there when Brian was savagely beaten to death,” she said, addressing the three men.

“If I had been there you would not have succeeded in your quest to attack my baby because you would have had to kill me first.”

She said she could not describe how it felt to see her son lying dead on a hospital bed with his two front teeth smashed or how it felt to see him lying in a coffin with her rosary beads in his hands.

Both parents strongly rejected the notion that their son had in any way instigated a fight.

His sister, Claire, one year Brian’s senior, said the only way she had been able to cope with her brother’s death was to blank out how he had died.

“Now that the trial is over and I have listened over and over again to the evidence, I find it inconceivable that only one person has been found responsible for his death,” she said.

“Alcohol is no excuse.”

She too criticised the way lawyers had implied all families involved in the trial had suffered a similar tragedy.

“Brian did not ask to be killed,” she added.

“Whatever happens to the others their families will always have them, but Brian will never return to us. This is not comparable.”

The court heard from a number of character witnesses for all three men, including Father Aidan Troy, based in Holycross, north Belfast, who is a friend of the Laide family.

In mitigation lawyers for all three applied for non-custodial sentences based upon their clients’ previous good character, the long wait they had to endure before the case reached the courts and the media attention it had generated, which has made them all household names.

Judge Michael White adjourned the case to deliver sentences next Monday, March 15.