Crinnion: ‘I wish peace between families’

The young man who admitted stabbing another man 13 times causing his death has no history of committing acts of violence, but there is no shortage of violence in his past.

Dean Crinnion was two years old when his father, Michael Crinnion, was shot dead on Barrack St in Cork outside a pub then called The Three Ones.

The late Michael Crinnion’s brother, Kieran, stepped in as a father figure for Dean, from when he was two years old. But by the time the boy had reached the age of six, his uncle Kieran was shot dead at the front door of his home in Thorndale Estate in Cork. The accused’s brother, Robert Crinnion, is serving 10 years for a serious attack on Finbarr Delaney, a brother of the man Dean Crinnion killed.

Superintendent Charles Barry said yesterday at the sentencing hearing for Dean Crinnion that he had no previous convictions, no history of violence and was never disrespectful to gardaí in his dealings with them. Defence senior counsel Brendan Grehan said that on one reading of the facts — a teenager inflicting 13 stab wounds to a 51-year-old man — it propelled the matter to the higher level of sentencing for manslaughter.

Against that, however, he said that with all of the talk of a feud between some members of the Delaney and Crinnion families, Dean Crinnion had not been involved in the feud before that fateful and fatal night during Christmas 2011.

In fact, it was pointed out to the sentencing judge that Dean Crinnion’s closest friends included younger members of the Delaney family, with whom he used to bring his dogs out hunting.

The accused Dean Crinnion said: “I would like to apologise to the Delaney family for the pain and hurt I have caused. Every morning it is the first thing in my head and the same last thing at night.

“I don’t know if they accept my apology. They have every right not to do so. I know I have to pay for what I did.

“Nothing like this will ever happen again. My life is in ruins since this happened. I would wish for peace between our families.”

This apology was read out on Crinnion’s behalf by Mr Grehan SC.