Dublin man found guilty of manslaughter

A 23-year-old Dublin man was sentenced to nine years imprisonment at the Central Criminal Court today for the manslaughter of another man in 1999.

Mr John Paul Hayes, Belcamp Green, Coolock, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of Mr Francis Moore, 33, on a retrial last November.

33-year-old Moore died on the balcony of his flat in Coultry Road, Ballymun on June 13, 1999.

He had been stabbed 39 times in the neck and chest.

Sentencing Mr Hayes this morning, Mr Justice Patrick Smith said, "drugs had played a vital part" in the killing.

He said both men were taking drugs in the flat on the night of the fatal stabbing.

Mr Hayes was described as a "slow learner" who left school at 14.

He had a "history of criminal activity to feed his drug addiction", the judge said, but he had taken into account that there was no violence in the perpetration of earlier offences.

A doctor's report indicated that Hayes "knows that he did wrong and wishes there was something he could do to repay the Moore family".

The parents of the deceased were in court to hear sentence passed.

Mr Hayes had denied his murder, but offered a plea to manslaughter that was not accepted by the prosecution prior to the commencement of the trial.

During the trial, the court heard that Mr Hayes was staying at the flat where his sister and her boyfriend, Mr Moore, were living.

Prior to the killing there had been "serious difficulties and violence" between Mr Moore

and Ms Hayes.

During one violent argument Mr Moore hit her with a bunch of keys in his fist and she moved out of the flat.

A week later he was found dead on the balcony of the flat.

In his evidence to the court Hayes admitted stabbing the deceased three times, but claimed a second man grabbed the knife and continued attacking Mr Moore.

A palm print made in blood on one of two knifes found at the scene was matched to that of Hayes.

Mr Justice Smith commented that a second man had been before the Central Criminal Court in relation to the killing, but that the prosecution had entered a nolle prosequi.

"The wounds I gave him, he'd have lived," Hayes said.

The Deputy State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy told the trial that wounds which "sliced across

the neck" of the deceased were made in a "deliberate manner".

Toxicology reports on the deceased man showed high levels of methadone as well as opiates and tranquillisers in his bloodstream.

Dr Cassidy said the lack of defence injuries indicated that Mr Moore hadn't defended himself from the assault.

Mr Justice Smith suspended the last two years of the sentence "providing the defendant remains drug free" during his entire prison term.