A young man who was mistaken for a gang member and stabbed to death in a field had a "heart of gold and a bright future", his mother told a sentencing hearing for his killer at the Central Criminal Court today.

The jury in the trial of a Derry man accused of murdering a pregnant woman has heard that blood matching the DNA of the deceased was found on a white t-shirt found at the apartment of the accused man.

A Mayo man who stabbed Dublin GAA star Jonny Cooper hours after attacking a taxi driver has been given a seven-year sentence with the final two years suspended.

The trial of a man accused of murdering a pregnant woman has heard that the man admits killing the woman.

The teenager charged with murdering Melanie McCarthy McNamara was a protected prisoner when he allegedly wrote a letter containing the phrase: "Two in the head. The bitch is dead".

A man who raped his victim for five hours after breaking into her house armed with a hatchet has been jailed for seven years at the Central Criminal Court.

A man who raped his victim for five hours after breaking into her house armed with a hatchet will likely receive less than 12 years in prison, it has been indicated at the Central Criminal Court.

An entrepreneur and Trinity College graduate who organised the importation of €29m worth of cocaine into the country will be sentenced next month.

A 27-year-old accused of murdering a man in Co Wicklow three years ago has given evidence at his trial that he saw another man shoot the deceased.

The father of a 27-year-old accused of murdering a man in Co Wicklow three years ago has said his son told him “he was going to be framed for something he hadn’t done”.

The father of a Dublin man killed more than six years ago held his dying son in his arms just moments after he had been shot in the back with a shotgun, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

A lawyer for a Derry man who strangled his ex-girlfriend to death has asked a jury to find him guilty of manslaughter and not murder.

A man arrested as part of an investigation into a €2.28m "tiger kidnapping" told gardaí a “cock and bull story” about a black notebook found during a search of his home, a trial has heard.

One of alleged raiders in a €2.28m "tiger kidnapping" fell asleep during the incident and had to be woken up by his accomplice, a trial has heard.

The State Pathologist has today told a murder trial that she found 50 gunshot pellet holes in the body of a 22-year-old Dublin man, who was shot near his Blanchardstown home more five years ago.

A young man who was made hold a weapons cache, including a machine gun and silencer, because he had run up a drug debt with a criminal gang has been jailed for five years.

A father of three who took part in an assault in which a carpenter's hand was cut off with a samurai sword has succeeded in having a quarter of his eight-year sentence suspended on appeal.

A social worker has told a Central Criminal Court jury that a female escort contacted her by mobile phone on the night she was allegedly falsely imprisoned, raped, sexually assaulted and threatened to be killed by a client.

A mother who left her three-month-old baby outside “in the depths of winter in below sub-zero temperatures” has been given a 12-month suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

A next door neighbour of a woman whose husband is accused of raping and assaulting her said she “heard a lot of shouting, screaming and banging” coming from the complainant’s house lasting several hours.

The wife of a man accused of raping and assaulting her admitted she had initially lied to gardaí in a statement saying that her husband had not been living with her at the time the alleged offences took place.

A woman accused of murdering a taxi driver in Dublin shouted encouragement as her partner, also charged with the murder, repeatedly stabbed the victim, a court heard today.

The trial of four men arrested during a Garda operation into suspected dissident activity in Donegal last March has heard that images of “men in balaclavas, camouflaged jackets and holding an AK47” were found during a search of a Transit van.

A JUDGE yesterday ordered a halt to the retrial of former Clare GP Paschal Carmody on charges of defrauding terminally ill patients pending the outcome of a High Court challenge.

A man accused of murder told gardaí during interviews that he stabbed a Latvian man because he was “in fear of his life”, the Central Criminal Court heard today.

A north-inner-city Dublin man has been given 16 years in consecutive sentences by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for his role in an attempted Securicor cash van heist while he was on bail for having cocaine for sale or supply.

A former soldier accused of murdering an infant today accepted in court that he had killed the child, 18-months old Oisin Reilly-Murphy.

The killing of an 18-month infant was "bizarre in the extreme" but the guilt of the accused man depended on whether or not the act was voluntary, a murder trial jury heard today.