Custodial sentencing: A father’s long battle for justice for his daughter
DONAL points to a hatch in the wall connecting two rooms as he remembers a moment from his daughter’s life.
“I’d often be in there in the adjoining room looking through the hatch and she’d be in here jiving around,” he says, a smile curling across his face. “Like any teenager, she loved the music. When she see me, she’d stop.”
He laughs softly at the memory, heaves in a breath, then adds: “You’d never think that it could come to you.”
Turning 80 next year, Donal Kealy still battles with the reality that landed on him and his family like a bus just over 22 years ago.
The day Catherine, just 21, had her life cut short in a pub car park at the hands of her boyfriend.
If the reality of that wasn’t enough for Donal and his family to deal with, they had to contend with the realisation in the years to come that the killer — Anthony Kiely — was not going to spend life in prison, despite the life sentence handed down by the judge.
Since the late 1990s, Donal has been fighting the justice and political systems, demanding answers. It is a story, a tragic human story, echoed in many homes across the country.
In his sitting room, where his daughter listened and danced to music all those years ago, Donal has assembled piles of documents, letters, newspaper clippings, photographs and a few books on a large coffee table.
Dressed in a smart suit, he recalls the events that changed everything.
It was a Thursday night, April 30, 1992, when the phone rang at around 11pm.
Donal was in bed with his wife at their home in Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
On the other end was a man they knew in Thurles, who ran a guesthouse where Catherine was staying.
“He was worried about Catherine; he said she didn’t turn up into her flat tonight. I didn’t make anything of it at all. I went back to bed. I said to my wife everything will be alright.”
His eldest daughter later knocked on their door, telling him the front door bell had rang.
“I answered the door. There were two guards from the town, and the Canon. They told me ‘your daughter was in an accident’.”
Donal brought them into the sitting room, where his wife and some of their children joined them.
“After talking for a while, I asked how did she die in the accident. They said ‘an accident in the car park in Thurles’. I knew then.”
They asked Donal if he wanted to go and see Catherine in the car park.
“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to go to identify her, I was in such shock.
“I wouldn’t be able to do it. That would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
One of the owners of the famous Hayes Hotel in Thurles, where Catherine worked in the coffee shop, identified her to police.
“You’re left pick up the pieces,” Donal says, recalling the night. “But they [the two guards] didn’t have the answers. I don’t think they were trained for it.”
Meanwhile in, Thurles, gardaí arrested Anthony Kiely, from the town, at the scene.
Kiely had told both emergency services and gardaí that he had killed the woman, saying he had been drinking all day.
Donal says he never heard of the guy: “I had two sisters in Thurles, but nobody mentioned his name. I was told afterwards she had a relationship with him and she was trying to break it off, but he set her up that night.”
He says his wife, Joan, was devastated by their daughter’s murder: “It completely destroyed her, because Catherine and herself had a great bond together.”
Donal says Joan didn’t really talk about the murder: “My wife was very silent, very religious, but she lost interest in life. She wouldn’t talk about it. The pain was too much. It affected all the family in different ways.”
Donal says that somehow he managed to arrange the funeral. “It was some ordeal to go to the mortuary to see her laid out, the first time I saw her after. It’s very hard to live with that. What people don’t realise is that they don’t just murder one person, they murder the whole family.”
Kiely was charged. Donal remembers the day he went to the first court appearance in Nenagh.
“One thing always sticks in my mind when he was attending court first. I went to the court. My wife went to Thurles with a friend. I went in on my own. I often said to myself afterwards, did I make a mistake going in on my own, but that’s over and done with now.
“I sat down at the back of the court. This man came in the side door not too far away with two guards. I asked one of the guards is that Anthony Kiely. He asked me ‘what do you want to know that for, it’s none of your business’. Maybe he didn’t know who I was, but I got emotional, very emotional. I was taken out by two guards. I was taken out like a criminal.”
He says he was outside five minutes when a senior garda came out to him. “He said to me: ‘Donal, I can understand your feelings, but you have to have respect for the court.’ I said: ‘I didn’t come to disrespect the court, I came to see the man who took my daughter’s life.’ ”
Donal says that he heard afterwards that the judge, Judge Michael Reilly, now the inspector of prisons, said he presumed that he was the woman’s father and that no one was to hold anything against him.
“I never met him to this day. I hope before I part I meet him and thank him for those kind words.”
That November, some six months after Catherine’s death, Kiely’s trial took place at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin.
He denied murder, but admitted manslaughter, but this plea was not accepted by the State.
The two-day trial heard that Catherine died from asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation.
In his book, Tears of Blood, journalist Michael Sheridan recalls the autopsy report of the State pathologist. It found bruising and cuts to the side of Catherine’s head, injuries which could have been caused by “forcing Catherine’s face downwards against hard ground”.
The report said the presence of some grit in the larynx, like that seen on the ground beside her body, would lend credence to such a manoeuvre taking place. There were no injuries to suggest sexual assault took place.
Kiely told the court he drank about nine pints of Guinness in Tullamore on April 30 and returned to Thurles about 7.30pm, where he resumed drinking, consuming about another four pints.
He said he telephoned Catherine and she agreed to meet him after 10pm in the bar. After a short time, he had asked her to go to the car park “to make love”, which he claimed was “not unusual”.
At the car park, he said he started kissing and touching the girl. “My hands were caressing her neck, my hands felt like they were tightening. Then I felt like I was falling backwards. I turned around. She hit the ground first. I still had my hands on her person. I’m not sure they were around her throat.”
He said the next thing he remembered was that she was lying face down in a pool of water.
He agreed she had asked him to stop choking her but claimed he didn’t remember hearing her scream.
The court heard evidence from a psychiatrist, Peter Fahy, who examined Kiely on two occasions.
He said he found no sign of serious psychiatric illness or serious depression.
Dr Fahy said he thought Kiely might have suffered a blackout while choking Catherine, but said the defendant had “very good recall” of what had happened, as he had set out in his statement to gardaí the day after the death.
Dr Fahy said this appeared to go against the possibility of having a blackout.
Kiely was found guilty of Catherine’s murder and received the mandatory life sentence.
“I thought leaving court that life meant life,” Donal says. But even that was taken away from him.
He wrote the first of what turned out to be many letters to the Department of Justice in early 1996, not even four years on from Catherine’s murder.
The reply from the private secretary of then justice minister Nora Owen was like a spear through his chest.
It pointed out to him that all long-term prisoners, including those serving life, can apply for a sentence review after seven years.
The letter told him Kiely’s case was not eligible for review until 1999.
“I couldn’t grieve properly for my daughter when I got that in writing. That to me was a joke. I thought life meant life. That word should never be used by the courts, because it doesn’t mean life. It’s misleading.”
Donal began to hear things about Kiely’s behaviour in prison, including, he says, from an unnamed source in the prison system who rang him.
Donal kept writing, including to the next justice minister Máire Geoghegan Quinn, who assured she had “fully noted the contents” of his letter.
“I haven’t stopped campaigning since, after getting those letters,” Donal says.
In 2002, there were photographs in the newspapers of Kiely walking through the streets of Dublin, listening to a walkman, smoking a cigarette.
“There was no escort,” said Donal. “He was on his way to cookery courses. He was also given temporary release at Christmas and Easter. He was attending bible workshops with the Quakers. To me, he played the system all along. He was also allowed date a girl who worked in the prison who he married afterwards. He met her for breakfast some mornings. This put the icing on the cake. It just showed me what kind of justice system we have in Ireland. It’s a joke.”
At the same time, Donal says, he and his family got no support.
“No one knocked on the door and said here’s a package for you, with help. You can never bring closure, because it will haunt you for the rest of your day. The justice department puts the weight on your grief. They are no help to families like us.”
Donal says he had to seek help himself, to cope with the feelings of anger, as well as the awful grief.
“I got counselling for 12 months after. There was no counselling offered to me — I had to look for it. You are told nothing, you are on your own. I had a good GP who arranged me to see a counsellor, Eamon Butler. I found he was my life saver. A very straight man, called a spade a spade. He said: ‘I’ll give you one piece of advice, there’s always something you can do every day, to keep your mind occupied.’ I never forgot that. So I’d go for a walk, cut the grass, back a few horses, little things like that.”
In 2007, Donal was informed by the Department of Justice that Kiely was approaching the 15 year tariff which had been set by recent ministers, a rise on previous decades.
Donal was told that the Parole Board had recommended release on licence, which applies to all lifers.
The department told Donal that Kiely would be living in a hostel from November on and that he had to comply with conditions, including staying away from Tipperary and remain under the supervision of the Probation Service.
“If I had my way, the only person who would take him out of prison is the undertaker,” says Donal. “To take someone’s life, the way Catherine’s life was taken so viciously, should mean that.”
He says that, at the very least, a murderer should serve 30 years in prison.
His devastation turned to outrage when photographs were published in the Sunday World in March 2009, showing Kiely and his new partner at Dublin Airport flying off on holiday to Egypt.
“I couldn’t believe it. I was baffled. How could a murderer on temporary release get a passport and a visa and go to Egypt with his girlfriend. With his criminal record? Say if he committed a crime in Egypt, Foreign Affairs and Department of Justice would have blood on their hands. Criminals are rewarded — that’s how it sounds to me.”
It started an intense frenzy of letter writing to the department and ministers, as well as local TDs. If any were visiting Nenagh or Thurles for any reason, he often approached and confronted them about his case.
Dermot Ahern was minister for justice at the time of Kiely’s travels abroad and Micheál Martin was minister for foreign affairs.
In April 2009, Donal received a letter from Mr Ahern sent through local FF TD Máire Hoctor.
It explained that Kiely had been on a structured temporary release programme, pre- and post-prison.
Mr Ahern said Kiely was fully assessed by the Irish Prison Service to establish his suitability for release and that he had been assessed by the therapeutic services.
“It was in this context that permission to travel outside the jurisdiction was granted,” the minister said, adding that consent to travel was given subject to the condition that all travel arrangements and comprehensive and verifiable contact details abroad were provided in advance.
“Anthony Kiely provided all the necessary information and has continued to fully comply with all requirements placed on him,” said the letter.
But Donal would not accept this. He also believed that Mr Martin had a role in granting the passport. He made repeated efforts to contact Mr Martin directly and through other Fianna Fáil TDs.
During all this time, Joan’s health deteriorated. She spent up to eight years in a nursing home, before passing away a number of years ago, aged 81.
“We were 50 years married, bar a month,” recalls Donal. He said he collapsed twice himself since, once while standing at the gate and another time at the garage door.
“I survived,” he says. “It was the overall stress of everything. It doesn’t go away.”
Earlier this month, Donal secured a meeting with Mr Martin.
He got the bus to Limerick and then another bus to Clonmel, where he stayed overnight in a hotel, to meet Mr Martin.
“It caused me a lot of hassle,” says Donal. “At my age I shouldn’t have to go through all that.”
He says they spoke for 45 minutes.
“I asked him straight to his face did he have any input in the granting of a visa and passport to Anthony Kiely,” says Donal. “He said it was nothing to do with foreign affairs at all.
“I told him I spoke to Éamon Ó Cuív, Willie O’Dea. I said: ‘They wrote to you, you ignored them, I was on to others, I rang your secretary in Cork and Dublin.’ He said sorry about that. I know he’s busy, but he could have phoned me.
“I got to meet him and got it off my chest. I told him that photo of him in the Sunday World will haunt me on this earth.”
Donal looks down at all the documents and clippings on the coffee table in front of him.
“If there was justice in Ireland, I wouldn’t need all this. I’m doing this for my daughter. She’s not here today, but something keeps telling me the whole time to do this. I want to feel I went down every avenue on this.”
And Donal is not giving up. Nor on life either. After 60 years on the cigarettes, he has quit.
“My doctor said to me: ‘Donal, do you want to keep walking? If you do, give up the cigarettes.’ I did.”
At the end of a long interview, he gathers his papers, pointing to a school photo of his daughter.
She was aged in mid-teens, smiling at the camera. She’s the spit of her dad.
“She was always a bubbly girl, very good-natured,” Donal says softly. “She couldn’t do enough for her mother and father. I would have wanted her to go on and be married and have children. That was robbed. God have mercy on her.”
How long do ‘lifers’ serve? How can they be given parole? What are the conditions of their freedom and how can they get passports?
The Irish Prison Service said the average time ‘lifers’ released from prison spent in custody between 2005 and 2013 was 18 years.
“This compares to an average of just over seven and a half years for releases dating from 1975 to 1984, just under 12 years for the period dating from 1985 to 1994, and just under 14 years for the period dating from 1995 to 2004,” said a spokesman.
“The average has increased since 2010 when the average for those released from 2004 to 2010 was 17.5 years.
“It is clear that life sentence prisoners are serving longer terms in custody.”
During his term as justice minister, between 2002 and 2007, Michael McDowell, instigated a policy through the Parole Board of substantially increasing the custodial terms of life sentences. This policy continued under his successors.
The average in recent years has also been affected (upwards) by the release of inmates who have served very long sentences.
This includes Malcolm MacArthur, who was released in September 2012 after serving 30 years for the double murder Bridie Gargan and Donal Dunne in 1982.
In 2010, Geoffrey Evans was released from prison after collapsing into a vegetative state and brought to hospital. He had spent 34 years in prison.
He was convicted for the rape, torture, and murder of Elizabeth Plunkett in Co Wicklow and Mary Duffy in Co Mayo in 1976, along with accomplice John Shaw.
Evans was electronically tagged in hospital and died in 2012. Shaw remains in prison.
Prison sources claim that even if these type of cases are excluded, very few people serving life sentences do any less than 15 years in prison.
The numbers in prison serving life terms has accumulated: From 221 in 2004, to 264 in 2007, to 290 in 2011, and to 319 in 2013.
The breakdown in 2013 shows that 305 of the 319 ‘lifers’ were convicted of homicide offences.
A further 11 were convicted of sexual offences, while three others were convicted of a small number of other crimes attracting life, including false imprisonment and attacks with a contaminated syringe.
Life sentences are mandatory in murder cases.
The guidelines from the Parole Board are that: “The safety and security of the public is top of the Parole Board’s priorities.
Following review and consideration of all relevant factors, the board advises the minister of your [the prisoner’s] progress to date. The main factors taken into account by the board, which are all of equal importance when reviewing your case, include:
1. The nature and gravity of the offence to which your sentence relates;
2. The sentence you are serving and any recommendations from the court that imposed the sentence;
3. How much of the sentence has been served at the time of the review;
4. Previous convictions;
5. The potential of danger you may pose to the safety and security of the public if you are released;
6. The level of risk of further offences being committed during any form of temporary release;
7. The risk of you failing to return to prison upon the expiration of any period of temporary release;
8. The risk of you not complying with any conditions attached to temporary release;
9. Your conduct while in prison or while previously on temporary release;
10. How much you have used the therapeutic services available while in prison (such as counselling or courses related to the offence committed and any type of re-offending);
11. How likely is it that temporary release would improve your prospects of safely integrating back into the community, or improving your chances of obtaining employment.
“A life sentenced prisoner has the possibility of being released from prison on licence,” said the Parole Board.
“A life sentence means that you will continue to serve your sentence for the rest of your life with the possibility of part of it being served in a community setting. If you are released on licence, you are still serving a life sentence and can be returned to prison if you re-offend or break any of the conditions of your release.
“There is no set number of years that you must serve in prison before you can be released on licence, but the decision to release a life-sentenced prisoner must be balanced against the offence committed. The number of years you will spend in prison is dependent on your progress in prison, the particular facts of your case, the recommendations made by the Parole Board and ultimately, the decision of the minister.”
The Irish Prison Service would not comment on Mr Kealy’s individual case. But on the general policy it said: “Life-sentenced prisoners on temporary release in the community may apply to the Irish Prison Service for permission to travel outside the jurisdiction.
“The minister makes the decision on all applications from life-sentenced prisoners to travel abroad based on the recommendations of the Irish Prison Service.
“Each application for permission to travel abroad is assessed on the merits of the individual prisoner case and on the proposed travel arrangements. A number of factors are taken into account including: how long they have been in the community and if they have been abiding by their temporary release conditions, the recommendation of the probation officer supervising the prisoner in the community, information from gardaí, governors’ reports, etc.
“If approval is granted to travel abroad the prisoner must abide by the conditions of their temporary release, they must disclose travel documents, details of travelling companions, and contact details must be made available.
“The minister may and has imposed extra conditions on prisoners prior to approving an application to travel.”
35% had suffered intimidation following the homicide; 75% said the personal relationship suffered; 18% broke up as a result, while 62% said they had stayed together,21% had to move home; 13% said they never returned to work as a result of the bereavement and a further 10% did so after a year
— AdVic survey of families.
Families of homicide victims are calling on the Government to remove the term “mandatory life sentence” for murder from the statute books.
They claim the term gives a “wholly false impression” of the actual sentence served by a murderer.
Advocates of Victims of Homicide Ireland (AdVic) said it should be replaced by what the reality is — a “mandatory minimum seven-year sentence”.
The support and advocacy group said those on life sentences can apply for parole as soon as seven years, although they admit very few get it that soon.
“The term ‘mandatory life sentence’ needs to be removed from legislation,” said John O’Keeffe, AdVic special adviser and criminologist. “This gives a wholly false impression as to the type of sentence to be served by the convicted person. The implication is that they will serve, if not the remainder of their days in prison, then at least the bulk of the reminder of their life.
“This is not and has never been the case in Ireland. A ‘life’ sentence is a pup sold to the public over many years to convince them that justice is being done, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.”
AdVic has called for minimum tariffs for all unlawful killings, not just murders. Mr O’Keeffe said a number of countries, including England/Wales and the North have this system.
AdVic recommends a series of tariffs: 15 years, 25 years, 30 years, and a whole life order. Mr O’Keeffe said these would be “starting points” and that judges would still have discretion.
He said they would have to give reasons for deviating from the tariffs and the reasons must refer to judicial guidelines.
He said that, in February 2013, Clive Sharp received a minimum term of 37 years for the murder of Irishwoman Catherine Gowing in Wales.
AdVic also wants those charged with homicide to be refused bail and for concurrent sentencing (where multiple sentences are served together rather than consecutively) to be abolished.
AdVic said the rise in custodial terms served by lifers, as revealed in the Irish Examiner, was welcome.
But he added: “An average sentence of 18 years means that perhaps up to half of murderers are serving less than 18 years, some considerably less.
“In any event, bar death through natural causes, no murderer in Ireland ever serves a life sentence by any reasonable definition.”
AdVic is not alone in calling for minimum terms. The State’s legal advisory body, the Law Reform Commission, produced a report last June calling for such. It said Ireland was the only country in the common-law world (including Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) without a system for minimum terms for murder. The commission recommended a system similar to the North, which allows judges to set sentences of 20-plus years, up to 35 years and whole-life sentences.
It said whole-life sentences were rare. In one instance in which it was imposed, it was reduced, on appeal, to 35 years.
The commission cited the case of Colin Howell who was given a minimum sentence of 21 years in December 2010 for a double murder in Derry. He poisoning his wife Lesley, 31, and Trevor Buchanan, 32, the husband of the woman with whom he had been having an affair.
In a report it published also last June, AdVic said that families of homicide victims were suffering a “life sentence” of trauma and called for the balance of rights to swing back “to the middle”, from killers to victims.
AdVIC conducted a survey of families. It found:
* 35% had suffered intimidation following the homicide;
* 75% said the personal relationship suffered;
* 18% broke up as a result, while 62% said they had stayed together;
* 21% had to move home;
* 13% said they never returned to work as a result of the bereavement and a further 10% did so after a year.
Research author Cathriona Nash said 31% of families did not undergo counselling and they were not offered the service as an automatic entitlement by the State.
She said what came up “again and again” in the study was that families felt they were the “ones serving a life sentence”.
The Department of Justice told the Irish Examiner that an “all encompassing strategic review”, involving an examination and analysis of all aspects of penal policy, including sentencing, was nearing completion.
A spokesman said that a working group was set up in September 2012 to conduct a Strategic Review of Penal Policy.
“The working group has been asked to carry out an all-encompassing strategic review of penal policy incorporating an examination and analysis of all aspects of penal policy, including sentencing policy,” he said.
“This review is ongoing and the working group is expected to report to the minister shortly.”
* AdVIC: 086 1272156: www.advic.ie: email info@advic.ie
* Support After Homicide: 087 9837322; www.supportafterhomicide.ie; roquigley@hotmail.com
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