Life 'unbearable' for mother of murdered teen

The mother of 14-year-old Daragh Conroy who was hammered to death for his mobile phone has told a court that "I will never be able to tell you I love you and that is more than I can bear".

Patricia Conroy told the court "life was unbearable without Daragh". Mrs Conroy was delivering a victim impact statement to the court.

Darren Goodwin, aged 16, of Graigue, Mountmellick had been found guilty of murdering Mr Conroy last July at the Central Criminal court.

Mr Goodwin had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Conroy of Briar Lane, Mountmellick on November 11, 2003, last July at the Central Criminal Court.

Mr Conroy’s body was found on waste ground in Smithsfield, Mountmellick shortly before midnight on November 11, 2003. He had suffered "six separate blows to his head", five of which were "inflicted in rapid succession", "with considerable force" while he was lying on the ground, the State Pathologist told the court during the 8-day trial.

After deliberating for over two-and-a-half hours, the jury of five men and seven women found the youth guilty by a majority of 11-1 last July.

Justice Barry White told the court yesterday he needed extra time to consider matters and would sentence Mr Goodwin on Friday.

Mr Conroy’s mother broke down in court as she read out her victim impact report to the packed court.

Mrs Conroy said Monday "should have been a happy day". "It should have been a day of celebration, it was Daragh’s 15th birthday, he loved parties. But this year’s birthday I visited your grave and this will be the future for all your birthdays", the distraught mother said.

"Trying to write this report was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in all my life," she said. "I had to do it, I had to do it for Daragh."

"I will always remember that night, searching Mountmellick for hours, ringing your phone," she said.

"Then worse still, I found out Daragh was dead, I couldn’t hold him. He lay in a cold field all night until the next day, I couldn’t hold him.

"All I could do was wait till I got the call that Daragh was taken to Dublin," she said.

Mrs Conroy said she wanted to know "how he suffered and did he call out for me". Mrs Conroy told the court that "Daragh was brought back to Briar Lane to say goodbye".

She said she could remember the "terror" of seeing her only child lying in the coffin. "He should not be dead, he’s only 14 years old," she said.

Mrs Conroy said she had to leave Mountmellick, moving in with her sister. "There was no way I could stay. I only go back to see Daragh’s grave. I can’t bear being there. I try to be invisible but that doesn’t work", she said.

Even with counselling, Mrs Conroy said, "there is so much pain bottled inside".

During the 8-day trial, Mrs Conroy told the court: "I thought it was enough he had killed my child", without having to sit through the details. "I heard things that no mother should hear," she said.

During the trial, the mother heard that the accused said; 'I wanted to kill someone, someone who no one would care about.' "How could he say that, the boy I carried for nine months?" she asked the court.

Mrs Conroy said there was "no-one to represent Daragh, no one to tell his story. Daragh had no rights, all the rights were for the accused".

The lack of remorse that Darren Goodwin showed during the trial "chilled me to the bone", she said.

"How could you sit there and you killed my son?" Mrs Conroy said.

She said the loss "of an only child is indescribable, it will never make sense". Why, what was the reason for Daragh to be murdered, Mrs Conroy asked. "To murder in such a vicious, unprovoked way, that was never answered".

The courageous mother told the court that "Daragh was my best friend". But she said he will "never have a career, he will never have a girlfriend, he will never get married".

"His loss is my loss, I will never see him again, I will never see him smile again. I will never be able to tell you I love you and that is more than I can bear," she said.

The mother of the teenage murderer told the court: "I am sorry for what has happened."

"It is beyond my understanding, totally," she said. "We are very sorry for what happened, if we could turn back the clock and make it different we would."

Mr Goodwin’s mother told the court that her son had "never showed any violence in all his life towards anyone".

She said there "had been some difficulties at home" and that he had moved in with his father who lived outside the town. "We were trying to put him on the right track," she said.

The court heard that the 16-year-old had only met his father for the first time shortly before he moved in with him just over a year ago.

Ms Goodwin said her son had a "suicide attempt" a few weeks before the fatal attack. The hospital, she said, "told us there was nothing wrong with him".

Mr Justice White said he "did not wish to prolong the trauma or agony" of Daragh Conroy’s family, however he said he needed until Friday to decide on the matter of sentencing.