Man sentenced to life in prison for kicking father-of-three to death

A Dublin man has been found guilty of kicking another man to death then setting fire to his body in a derelict mansion last year.

It took the Central Criminal Court jury of eight men and four women just under six hours to find Alan Walsh (aged 39) of 43, Edenmore Park in Coolock guilty of the murder of father-of-three, Dermot Sheridan at Red Court, Seafield Road East, Clontarf between August 8 and August 9 2007, by a majority of 10 to two. They also found him guilty of arson at the same time and place.

During the week-long trial, the jury heard that Walsh had been drinking with several other men in St Anne’s Park in Raheny for most of the day on August 8. He told gardaí he had drunk between 17 and 30 cans of lager and cider.

When the park was closing, he and the deceased, together with a third man and Walsh’s dog, went to Red Court to continue drinking. They arrived at the house at around 9 p.m and went through to the kitchen at the back of the house.

After about three hours a row developed between Walsh and the deceased. Walsh later told gardaí that Mr Sheridan had started shouting that Walsh was growing more like his alcoholic father and that his family were scum.

Walsh said he found this particularly offensive because his father was at the time in a home, suffering from liver damage.

He said he got up, throwing over the table between them. He told gardaí that Mr Sheridan did not at any stage strike him although he did lunge at him at the start.

Mr Sheridan fell to the ground and Walsh started kicking him along the left side of his body. He told gardaí that he thought he had kicked the deceased man around 90 times and that the attack lasted for about an hour.

He also struck him over the head with four separate wine bottles he picked up from the floor of the abandoned kitchen, but discarded each one when it failed to break.

Walsh told gardaí that at one stage his leg became tired and he stopped to smoke a cigarette but Mr Sheridan started groaning so he got up and started kicking him again.

He said that after some time, Mr Sheridan’s face turned purple. Walsh said he then saw some newspapers which he stacked over the other man and lit with his lighter.

He told gardaí that he had not known whether Mr Sheridan was alive or dead at this point but had known that he would die if he did not walk away from the fire.

He then left the burning house and walked away. He later went to Raheny garda station and handed himself in.

Mr Sheridan’s badly burned body was found lying in the kitchen of the house. His remains were so charred that it was not possible to conduct a full post mortem examination. Forensic tests revealed that he had been dead before the fire started.

Mr Justice Barry White thanked the jury and excused them from further jury service for 10 years.

In a statement read to the court on behalf of the family, cousin Stephen Mahaddy that Mr Sheridan’s body was so badly burned and beaten there was "very little left to bury".

He said that Mr Sheridan’s mother never recovered from the death of her son and died a few months later.

Mr Mahaddy said that 47-year-old Mr Sheridan was looking forward to the birth of his first grandchild. He was a kind-hearted, funny and genuine person who had just started to turn his life around.

He said the family wanted to acknowledge the pain the Walsh family had also suffered.

“We acknowledge and understand what they too have been going through.”

Speaking after the statement Mr Walsh told the Sheridan family he was sorry for what he had done.

“I would like to say sorry for what happened. Sorry for your loss. It could have been me or him...It was him. Sorry.”

Mr Justice White sentenced Walsh to a mandatory life sentence for the murder with a further seven years, to run concurrently, for the arson. Both sentences were backdated to October 2007.