Teenager found guilty of manslaughter of father

A Central Criminal Court jury has found a teenager not guilty of murdering his father but guilty of his manslaughter.

The jury reached its verdict by a 11 to one majority following just more than three hours of deliberations on day six of the trial.

Thomas Cunningham (aged 19) of Santa Maria Commons, Ballinlough, denied murdering 46 year-old Thomas Brendan Cunningham at their home on August 23, 2007. He will be sentenced by Mr Justice Paul Butler on April 30, 2009.

Cunningham currently resides in the UK and had returned to Ireland for his trial. Mr Justice Butler remanded him on continuing bail saying there were exceptional circumstances in the case. The judge indicated that it was "likely" that a custodial sentence would be imposed.

Defence counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, earlier told the jury that the accused accepted that he was responsible for the unlawful killing of his father but was not a murderer and although he had assaulted his father, he had not intended to kill him. Mr Grehan described the case as a "tragedy" in his closing speech to the jury last week.

The jury had heard that the accused lived with his father and grandparents and that his father was an alcoholic. The deceased had been drinking on the day leading up to his death and came home drunk.

The accused was annoyed with his father who had been sent out earlier to buy food. He grabbed his father and punched him outside the house. The deceased fell to the ground where the accused said he punched him twice more and kicked him.

The deceased was helped up but fell down again and was left in the garden overnight with a duvet and pillow. He was found dead the following morning.

During the trial the jury heard from the State Pathologist, Professor Marie Cassidy, that the deceased had had a high level of alcohol in his blood. She said the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head which was complicated by a crush injury to the chest.

She agreed with the defence that that the deceased's injuries were consistent with the accused's account of what occurred.

The jury heard from the accused's mother that the deceased had been a "difficult man" with drink. He was receiving a carer's allowance of €300 per week in relation to his parents but the accused was in fact their carer.

The accused initially told gardaí that he had punched his father once in the face but a more accurate account emerged over two days of interviews. He said he had waited up for his father who did not have a key as he did not want him to wake the house.

The deceased's father had asked him to go to the chip shop in the afternoon to buy dinner but left the house after 3 pm and was seen in a number of pubs in Castlerea and Ballinlough. He returned home drunk after midnight.

The accused told gardaí that he had looked for his father in every pub in Ballinlough and was sitting in the porch when his father got home.

He went out to his father and grabbed him by the neck. He demanded to know where the deceased had been. He said he punched his father in the face once and his father fell to the ground. He said he had never hit anyone so hard in his life.

He then kneeled on his father's chest and punched him two more times as he lay on the ground. He then kicked him in the stomach to get him up.

The accused's grandfather came out to help get the deceased up but he fell back down and hit his head. The accused said the noise of his father hitting his head was "horrible" and he thought he had "smashed his head open".

When asked why he did not call an ambulance at that point, the accused said that he said he was done with his father and was not going to help him anymore.

He said he and his grandfather got a duvet and pillow for the deceased and left the door open for him. In the morning the grandfather told the accused to ring an uncle to help get the deceased into the house and said he was breathing and moving at around 7.30am.

The accused said that when he saw his father he checked for a pulse and called an ambulance.