Man gets life for Dublin murder

A 24-year-old Dublin man has been jailed for life for the murder of his teenage girlfriend in a derelict house in Ballsbridge in Dublin last year.

At the Central Criminal Court today a unanimous jury verdict found Phillip Reddin guilty of the murder of 17-year-old Niamh Murphy at a house on Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge on May 10, 2002.

Reddin, a father-of-one, who is originally from Donamore Park, Tallaght and now of no fixed abode had denied the charge.

Reddin viciously strangled the teenage girl, who was from Galway, before cutting her throat with a garden shears during a row over his former girlfriend.

The couple first met in Galway where they were both sleeping rough and moved to Dublin together some months before the incident.

During the four-day trial the court heard that Reddin was the one who alerted gardaí to a "grisly scene" where he hugged the dead girl’s body and cried ‘Niamh, wake up, why did you have to go away".

One month later when he was arrested and charged with her murder, Reddin confessed to killing the girl and said he used the garden shears in an attempt to blame someone else for the crime.

He told gardaí that a row had broken out between the couple over a former girlfriend named Joanne.

"Niamh just snapped. I told her if I wanted to be with Joanne I could have the other night," he said.

He said his girlfriend was shouting at him and hitting him with bottles when he grabbed her by the throat.

"I grabbed her neck and I kept on choking her and before I knew it she was blue in the face," he said. After this he said he picked up the garden shears "because I knew everyone’s prints were on it".

"I drew it across her neck, then panicked, and ran outside to call the gardaí."

When asked by gardaí what was going through his mind when he strangled the girl, who was just over five feet tall, he replied, "I just wanted her to stop hitting me and shouting at me and listen to me that I wanted to be with her, not Joanne".

The adoptive parents of the deceased girl were in court to hear the verdict, but made no comment.

Reddin closed his eyes and lowered his head as Mr Justice Paul Carney imposed the mandatory sentence in what he deemed a "distressing case".