‘If he hadn’t got bail, her mammy would be alive’

THE husband of murdered mother-of-two Sylvia Roche Kelly has demanded to know why her killer was let free to prey on her when he was already awaiting trial for two other savage crimes.

Lorcan Roche Kelly could only recognise his wife by her hair when he was called to identify her body, such was the extent of her injuries after the brutal attack by Gerard McGrath in December 2007.

When McGrath was sentenced last month to life in prison for her murder, the Central Criminal Court heard that at the time of her death, McGrath was already charged in connection with a vicious attack on a woman taxi driver in Co Cavan seven months earlier but was given bail.