Pensioner can't face farm since killing

A PENSIONER whose brother was killed for £45 yesterday spoke of his sorrow since the attack that destroyed his life two years ago.

“I’m bad these two years after it. They killed Paddy, I’m lucky to be alive. We were going along great,” Peter Logan told the Central Criminal Court yesterday as sentencing was passed on the two men who attacked the elderly brothers at their farm at Castlejordan, Co Meath.

Since the brutal attack, Peter Logan has not been able to return to the farm he had shared with his brother and lived on since the age of nine. “No. I never went out near it,” said Mr Logan, who now lives with his niece.

Two brothers, John Doyle, 35, and Christopher Doyle, 29, were jailed yesterday to a total of 27 years for the killing of 81-year-old bachelor Paddy Logan, who was beaten to death on June 5, 2000. In court yesterday, Peter Logan had to be helped to the stand to give evidence of how his life was destroyed by the killing of his brother.

Mr Logan sustained a fractured nose in the attack and has been on anti-depressants ever since. He also suffers from recurring flashbacks and nightmares of that terrible day.

The two elderly brothers, who lived alone in the farmhouse they had farmed since boyhood, were listening to a match on the radio when Christopher and John Doyle broke in demanding money.

The court heard that Paddy Logan was beaten severely and died from an accumulation of blood around the heart caused by rupture of the aortic wall. Post mortem results showed that the violent assault led to raised blood pressure which caused the rupture. After killing Paddy Logan, the Doyle brothers took £45 (57) from Peter Logan’s pockets before escaping. The court heard that both defendants were heroin users. Between them, they have 13 children.

Both John and Christopher had previously been involved in violent killings. John Doyle was convicted of stabbing an 84-year-old man to death in Dublin in 1984. He was also convicted of the burglary of an elderly couple in England, an offence that happened after the killing of Mr Logan. In 1996, Christopher Doyle was jailed for three years by Bournmouth Crown Court after he broke into the bedroom of an elderly spinster and beat her around the head while demanding money. This victim died three months later.

The defendants are from a family of settled Travellers whose mother sent John out to steal when he was seven years’ old, the court heard.

John Doyle of no fixed abode and Christopher Doyle formerly of Fatima Mansions Dublin whose last address was St Fintan’s Grove, Lucan Co Dublin, both denied murder but pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Paddy Logan.

Jailing the two, Mr Justice Carney said: “For the sake of £45” the life of one man was snuffed out and his brother had his destroyed. No sentence he could impose would adequately deal with the horror of this case, he said.