Court: Mother's killer must serve extra five years

A murder victim’s mother today revealed her dread of the frenzied killer seeking revenge after helping get him locked up for at least five more years.

Chef Conor Doyle, 23, mercilessly stabbed his ex-lover up to 75 times in a drunken rage.

He was told he must serve a minimum 10 years of a life prison sentence for killing Angela Snoddy, 21, at her home near Belfast in October 2002.

But after a campaign by the mother-of-two’s outraged family, the Northern Ireland Appeal Court ruled that he must serve at least 15 years before being considered for parole.

Dressed in a blue shirt and tie, Doyle, of Limestone Road, north Belfast, sat handcuffed and head bowed as Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr described it as an “unspeakable assault”.

He said: “What is clear, beyond question, is that she was the victim of a horrendous, sustained attack in which a number of knives were used.”

The three appeal judges who studied the case decided such savage violence against women had to be punished hard.

“While few cases involve the level of violence that was inflicted on the victim on this occasion, courts have a duty to send a clear message to those who engage in violence on women that severe penalties will be imposed on those who are found guilty of it,” the judge said.

Once the 30-minute hearing was over the victim’s mother, Helen Snoddy, expressed relief at the outcome.

“Fifteen years sits better with me than 10,” she said.

“It sends a better message out to the violent men that have the murder of their partners on their minds.”

Mrs Snoddy said she now had more time to care for her grandchildren without worrying about an early release.

But she admitted: “That fear will never leave me of Conor Doyle, when he gets out, coming after me and my family.”

With the original minimum tariff one of the lowest ever handed down for murder, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had urged the Court of Appeal to examine the case.

Doyle and his victim endured a stormy 18-month relationship leading up to the shocking murder.

Their baby son was just seven weeks old when the knifing happened, while Ms Snoddy also had a three-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.

Doyle, who suffered psychiatric problems, had been out drinking heavily before taking his father’s car and driving to his former partner’s home at Whiteabbey, Co Antrim where the attack took place.

Police later found her body with a knife lodged six inches into the chest.

As well as being stabbed repeatedly, Ms Snoddy’s head was punched or stamped on so fiercely that those blows alone could have killed her.

“It cannot be certain at what stage Ms Snoddy sustained fatal injury,” the Lord Chief Justice said.

“One can only hope that it was at an early point in this appalling attack.”

Doyle was stopped, covered in blood, by officers called to a car crash in a nearby housing estate.

He admitted to killing his ex-girlfriend so she would not take his son away.

He also remarked callously: “At least I will see my child in 20 years’ time. She won’t.”

Sir Brian and his colleagues, Lord Justices Nicholson and Campbell, decided any sorrow expressed was not genuine enough to be used in mitigation.

“Doyle’s expressions of regret do not rest easily with his remarks to friends and police in the immediate aftermath of the killing, or with the absence of much expressed remorse during police interviews when he was no longer intoxicated,” the Lord Chief Justice remarked.