Two found guilty and sentenced to life in Cork murder trial
The two men accused of murdering a 24-year-old man in Mahon last year by stabbing him 11 times were found guilty of the crime yesterday and they were given sentences of life imprisonment.
John Brett (aged 25), of 26A Leitrim Street, Cork, hung his head and looked at the floor afterwards. Jason Quinlan (aged 29), of 11 Loughmahon Drive, Mahon, Cork, showed no visible reaction. They both denied murdering Brian McKee (aged 24), at Ballinure Avenue, Mahon, Cork, on August 25, 2007.
The late Mr McKee’s family cried and hugged each other after the verdicts were delivered.
The jury of 11 took almost seven hours to reach their majority 10-1 verdicts on the 12th day of the trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork yesterday.
Detective Garda Tony O’Flynn told Mr Justice Paul Carney that Brett had 68 previous convictions for crimes including assault, theft, burglary and drug-dealing. Quinlan had 33, including counts for serious assault, making threats to kill and carrying weapons.
The deceased's father, Patrick McKee, said on behalf of the family of the late Brian McKee:
"Try to imagine the unimaginable on a personal level, try to imagine your worst fears coming home in a split second, your front door being battered in the early hours of the morning and knowing instinctively that when that door was opened the unimaginable had taken on a life of its own, it was palpable, it was alive and it had a face. Brian had been stabbed, he is lying on the road bleeding, he is dead.
"We loved him dearly and miss him terribly and I would like if I may to remind people that the right to life is a basic human right which I believe has been downgraded nothing more than an aspiration. We need as a society to wake from the collective slumber we are in, open our eyes and look at the communities we are living in, where we allow these things to happen and pretend that they aren’t.
"The impact of Brian’s death on my family and I and the consequences it has left behind has spread into the wider community in which we live, this wonderful community of Mahon and Blackrock are still shocked and numbed by Brian’s death as we all still struggle to understand why it ever happened."
