Killer posted pieces of fight victim’s ear to him

A CONVICTED killer who had bitten off part of a man’s ear during an earlier dispute and posted it through the victim’s letterbox in an envelope some days later has been jailed for four years.

Martin O’Brien, aged 22, of St John’s Park, Waterford, pleaded guilty to the assault of Jonathan Lynch, causing him harm, at a flat in the city in December 2009.

Noel Whelan, prosecuting, told Judge Rory MacCabe at Waterford Circuit Criminal Court how Mr Lynch arrived home after spending four or five days in hospital to find an envelope in his apartment with “several pieces of his ear in it”.

O’Brien is currently in Cork Prison for offences including manslaughter.

The biting incident happened three months before he killed Damien Organ, 25, by striking him in the head with a hurley in a secluded area of People’s Park, Waterford, during a late-night row.

Mr Whelan yesterday said that on December 12, 2009, Jonathan Lynch entered the flat in William St in the city with a fork. The occupant was alleged to have stolen Mr Lynch’s mobile phone.

Mr Whelan said that Mr Lynch, from Cabinteely, Co Dublin, told gardaí O’Brien “quickly set upon him — took him to the ground and got his teeth” into the man’s left ear.

O’Brien told gardaí that “he ran at me” with a fork in his hand.

“I then locked onto his ear with my mouth,” said O’Brien, who was jailed for two years.

He was also sentenced to four years for his part in an armed robbery at the filling station on the Park Road in Waterford City on November 25, 2010.

O’Brien entered the shop with a knife while a young woman worked there alone and left with €280 in cash, along with credit receipts.

Both sentences are to run concurrently.