Killer faces challenge to sentence over death of Rachel

CONVICTED killer Ian Horgan will have the leniency of his 18-month sentence for the manslaughter and rape of Cork woman Rachel Kiely challenged on April 19.

The Director of Public Prosecutions lodged an appeal almost a year ago against the sentence imposed on Ian Horgan, aged 23, from Ballincollig, for the killing and rape of the young Ballincollig woman in October 2000.

Under the existing sentence, Horgan is due to get out of jail in September.

The judges who will decide the case have yet to be selected.

Rachel Kiely was killed by her then 16-year-old neighbour after going out walking her dogs at Ballincollig Regional Park on October 26, 2000.

Horgan was originally given a life sentence for the beautician’s murder and 10 years for her rape.

In December 2004, that conviction was quashed due to a successful appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, where three judges said they were not satisfied with the trial judge’s summing up to the jury.

A retrial was ordered.

At the new hearing held in February 2006, State Pathologist Dr John Harbison, who conducted the autopsy on Rachel’s body, could not give evidence due to ill health.

As a result, legal history was created when his successor, Dr Marie Cassidy, was cross-examined on the pathological evidence using photos taken at the original post-mortem.

At the end of the trial, Horgan was found guilty of Rachel Kiely’s rape and manslaughter but not her murder.

Judge Barry White sentenced Horgan to terms of eight years’ detention for both the rape and the manslaughter and ordered the sentences to run concurrently.

He acknowledged that Horgan had spent a total of four-and-a-half years in custody since November, 2000. He said this was in effect the equivalent of a six-year sentence, and, as a result, suspended the last six years of the term.

The Kiely family, who moved away from Ballincollig after the court hearing and are now living elsewhere in the county, have expressed their shock that their daughter’s killer could be free by September.

They say he is a ‘real threat to women’ and should remain in prison until he is a ‘very old man’.