Midleton braced for return of boy's killer

The hometown of the young student, Wayne O’Donoghue, convicted of killing schoolboy Robert Holohan is fully prepared for his imminent release, it was claimed tonight.

O’Donoghue, 23, is due to walk free from the Midlands Prison, in Portlaoise, tomorrow after serving three years of his manslaughter sentence for the death of his next door neighbour.

Ken Murray, a Fianna Fáil councillor and solicitor in Midleton, said people were prepared to deal with the latest development in the case which has commanded huge media attention.

But he insisted that the former engineering student would have no future in the east Cork town because of his notoriety.

“If someone struck him people would be very disappointed about it,” he said.

“People are being level-headed about this. People have made up their own minds. If they saw Wayne O’Donoghue walking down the street on a Saturday afternoon it would stop traffic the first time but not after that.

“There’s no risk of vigilantism.”

But Mr Murray said there is little hope of a future for O’Donoghue in east Cork.

“If you are saying to me does Wayne have a future in Midleton I’d say ’No’. If you’re saying could Wayne make a living in Midleton I’d say ’No’. And if you’re saying would Wayne be assaulted I’d say ’No’,” he said.

“People are prepared to deal with it politely in a dignified way.”

Both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice have denied suggestions that O’Donoghue will get Government aid to move abroad.

Robert, 11, was killed by O’Donoghue, then aged 20, in January 2005.

The schoolboy’s body was dumped near Inch Strand in Co Cork and was not found for more than a week later.

O’Donoghue, from Ballyedmond near Midleton, was acquitted of the young boy’s murder but pleaded guilty to his manslaughter.

At his sentencing hearing, Robert’s mother Majella Holohan departed from the agreed victim impact statement to ask why semen was found on her son’s body.

The information had not been introduced by the prosecution during the trial.

High Court judge Mr Justice Paul Carney told the Law Society at University College Cork that O'Donoghue had been branded a paedophile killer, which he was not, when the tabloid press adopted Ms Holohan’s comments.