Dead teen's mother pleads for Limerick killings to end

The mother of a Limerick teenager who died after a brutal beating has pleaded for an end to the senseless killings in Limerick as her sons’ killers were sent to prison yesterday.

Bernadette Coughlan told the Central Criminal Court in Dublin today that the night her 18-year-old son Darren was killed will haunt her family for the rest of their lives.

Joseph Keane (aged 19), of Greenhills Road Garryowen, Limerick and Richard Treacy (aged 19), of Munchins Street, St Mary’s Park were sentenced to six years in prison for the manslaughter of Darren Coughlan when they appeared in the Central Criminal Court today.

Shane Kelly (aged 20), of Oliver Plunkett St Mary’s Park was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Mr Justice Paul Carney heard the apprentice electrician had been an unwitting victim in the city’s feud, which had claimed the life of Keane’s own father Kieran who was murdered in 2003.

Treacy’s brother Owen was maimed in the same incident.

The court heard on November 4, 2005, Darren Coughlan had gone out with his friends for the night when a red VW Golf pulled up beside them in a laneway near the Moyross Estate.

Keane was driving and Kelly and Treacy got out, Kelly mistaking Darren Coughlan for a man called Mark Coughlan.

Surrounded by his assailants, Darren Coughlan tried to hold them off with a beer bottle before running away.

He slipped on grass near the Limerick Institute of Technology in Old Cratloe Road and was beaten for about 30 seconds, leaving him with head injuries which later killed him, the court heard.

Mr Coughlan died in hospital three days after the beating and his organs were donated for transplant.

Mrs Coughlan told the court her hard-working son who loved music, a good sing-song and chatting up the girls "did not deserve to die".

The image of her son running for his life and his last phone call - where he spoke to his 10-year-old sister asking for help - would haunt her forever, she said.

"He loved life and had a great future ahead of him," she said.

The three had assaulted Darren and left him on the side of the road.

"I have never seen remorse shown at any time for the way they ended our 18-year-old son’s life," Mrs Coughlan said.

"Darren was an innocent victim and he didn’t deserve to die. Even in his final moments he gave to others. The greatest gift of all the gift of life."

Since his killing, the main witness to Darren’s beating - his friend Philip Healy - had lived with his family in a virtual prison, she said.

They were under 24-hour garda protection, had security cameras around the home and steel shutters on their windows to shield them from intimidation.

Other family members and friends had been forced to move because of their fear.

"These senseless killings of innocent people must stop," she said.

The trio’s sentencing comes one week after the men who killed Kieran Keane lost their appeals in the Court of Criminal Appeal and family supporters were told if the feud was not brought to an end their family members were likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

"No heed has been taken of this warning," Mr Justice Carney said yesterday.

Detective Inspector Seamus Nolan told the court Keane and Treacy were just emerging in the feud before Darren’s death.

Keane had been shot at two weeks before Darren’s killing and was told if he did not stop he would kill or be killed.

Kelly had amassed 71 previous convictions, Mr Nolan said, and, while he was not seen as a leader, he was a very violent individual.

Keane and Treacy’s mothers told the court their sons were remorseful, Keane’s mother pleading for leniency, saying she had already lost her husband and did not want to lose her son as well.

Mr Michael O’Higgins SC for the Director of Public Prosecutions asked for sentencing in the range of five to 10 years.

Mr Conor Devally SC for Keane said Keane had huge regret and acknowledged his involvement.

"He drove the car. He drove the car away. He knew there was a beating or a duffing up to be had," he said.

Mr Patrick Gagbey SC said Treacy was a Leaving Certificate student at the time and there was nothing to suggest up until the beating his behaviour had been anything less than satisfactory.

No one knew the assault would end in Darren’s death, he said.

Mr Brian McInerney for Kelly said Kelly apologised unreservedly to the Coughlan family and asked the judge to take into account his poor education and the fractured domestic setting he came from.

Mr Justice Carney did not accept any of the offenders had ever shown remorse, denying leave to appeal.

As they were led away, the trio smiled and winked at supporters in the public gallery.