Sex offender jailed for manslaughter

A convicted Louth sex offender has been jailed for six years for the manslaughter of a 57-year-old man whom he claimed sexually molested his girlfriend while they slept rough on a Dublin street.

Derek Clarke (aged 26) of Moneymore, Drogheda was convicted by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of unlawfully killing Mr Martin Reilly on July 12, 2004.

The jury took three hours to return the unanimous guilty verdict on the seventh day of the trial earlier this month. Clarke had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Judge Yvonne Murphy said that while she accepted the assault by Clarke was minor she was satisfied that the evidence proved it had contributed to Mr Reilly’s death. She told Clarke that he "should not settle disputes with his fists".

She said there was no evidence that Mr Reilly had sexually assaulted Clarke’s girlfriend. Rather, the main eyewitness, Ms Niamh Roche, stated that she only saw him put his arm around the woman. She was satisfied that Clarke was not aware of Mr Reilly’s heart condition.

Judge Murphy said she considered it an aggravating factor that Mr Reilly was leaving the scene when Clarke ran after him and that he never reported the incident to the emergency services.

"I would like to thank Ms Roche for everything she done on the night. Mr Reilly’s family can be assured that everything that could have been done for him was done because of Ms Roche’s actions." She expressed her sincere sympathies to Mr Reilly’s immediate and extended family.

Judge Murphy sentenced Clarke to six years in prison which she backdated to July 19, 2004, when he first went into custody. She ordered that he be given the assistance of the probation service before he is released so that a structure will be put in place to prevent him re-offending

Garda John Brady told Mr Sean Gillane BL, prosecuting, that Ms Roche was drawing her curtains at 11.15pm in her apartment that looked out on to Island Street. When she saw two men, with a women between them, lying under a duvet outside the Simon Community Building.

The younger man, who was Clarke, pushed Mr Reilly away after he had put his arm around the woman. Ms Roche told gardaí that Mr Reilly got up to walk away but Clarke followed him and punched him five or six times.

She thought that both men were unsteady on their feet and appeared drunk. Mr Reilly fell to the ground and Clarke turned away returning to the woman who was still outside the doorway.

Gda Brady said that when Clarke saw Mr Reilly struggling to get to his feet he jumped back up and ran after him punching him in the back of the head.

Ms Roche said this punch was thrown with force and resulted in Mr Reilly falling to the ground a second time when his head hit the concrete. She never saw Mr Reilly return any blows. Clarke went back to the doorway and got under the duvet with the woman.

Ms Roche called the emergency service but their subsequent attempts to resuscitate Mr Reilly failed and he was pronounced dead at St James Hospital a short time later.

Clarke was approached by gardaí when they arrived at the scene but he told them he did not see anything. However, Ms Roche later pointed him out as the culprit when she was giving a statement to gardaí in her apartment.

Gda Brady said Clarke admitted, when he was later arrested, to hitting Mr Reilly in the jaw a few times and kicking him in the head but he was of the view that Mr Reilly had done something untoward to his girlfriend, the woman who had been in the doorway.

He accepted that he had knocked Mr Reilly to the ground, ran after him again and punched him in the face.

A post-mortem examination on Mr Reilly by Dr Marie Cassidy, the State Pathologist, concluded that the cause of death was due to heart disease but she said blunt trauma to the head and body, caused by Clarke’s assault on him, was a contributory factor.

However, she said that the injuries he received from the assault were superficial and in the ordinary course of events she would expect a person to recover from them.

Gda Brady said that although there was an impression given in the trial that Mr Reilly was homeless at the time of the incident, he was in fact a family man living in the Lucan area. He had no previous convictions and had never come to the attention of the gardaí.

Mr Reilly’s wife died three year previous and he found this difficult to live with having lost two of their children at an early age.

Gda Brady clarified that Clarke’s girlfriend was later interviewed where she made no complaint of assault on her by Mr Reilly, "sexual or otherwise".

Clarke had served four years in prison after he was convicted in Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court on four charges of sexual assault. He has 15 other criminal convictions.

Gda Brady agreed with Mr Peter Finlay SC (with Mr Padraig Dywer BL), defending, that Clarke had no weapons of offence on him when he was arrested and confirmed that Clarke had stated during questioning that he never intended Mr Reilly to die.

Clinical psychologist Dr Brian Glanville told Mr Finlay that an assessment of Clarke revealed he had an IQ consistent with a person with a mild intellectual disability. He said upon release from prison he would need support services to help get the skills necessary to live an independent life.

Mr Finlay told Judge Murphy that Clarke wished to express his sincere sorrow and regret for what happened on the night.

He said that Clarke did not go looking for trouble on the night but that the assault, which counsel said was "not a merciless, relentless beating" arose out of an altercation that was not premeditated. He added that Clarke would not have struck Mr Reilly had he known he was ill.

Mr Finlay said that Clarke informed him that the sexual assault conviction arose out of a dispute he had with an ex-girlfriend.

However, Gda Brady told Mr Gillane in re-examination, that after investigating the matter he learned that the charges related to four different victims and four different occasions where he had sexually assaulted them after he led them down lanes when they were returning home at night.

Mr Finlay replied that this did not appear to be Clarke’s recollection.