Dublin man sentenced to five years for killing armed raider

A Dublin man was sentenced to five years imprisonment at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin today for the manslaughter of an armed supermarket raider in 2008.

David Wilson (aged 22) of Marigold Avenue, Darndale, was convicted of the manslaughter of Paul Howe (aged 22), of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, in a car park at the rear of Supervalu on the Howth Road in October 8,2008.

After his trial last October, a jury acquitted Mr Wilson of murder but found him guilty of manslaughter.

Counsel for the defence Mr. Brendan Grehan SC read out an apology from Mr Wilson. He read: "I would like to apologise to Mr Howe’s family. I know they must hate me."

Mr Grehan asked the court to take into account Mr Wilson’s young age when imposing a sentence.

Mr Justice George Birmingham said it was a desperately sad business, the effects of which would last forever. He said he had a sense of the enormity of what was involved after listening to the impact statement read aloud to the court by the deceased’s sister Rachel McCabe.

Members of the deceased’s family openly wept as the impact statement was read out.

He said a very significant fact was that the fatal weapon was not brought to the scene by Mr Wilson, nor did Mr Wilson leave the scene to arm himself. The knife was introduced to the scene by the raiders. He said that this distinguished the case from other knife crime cases.

However, he said, the sheer ferocity of the attack was alarming. He said the Nally case in which a six-year sentence was imposed was of some assistance.

He said he took into account the fact that a plea of manslaughter was offered, that Mr. Wilson was a young man at the time of the incident and that he had a number of previous convictions.

He imposed a sentence of five years imprisonment to date from October 14, 2010, the date of conviction.

The trial had taken eight days in the Central Criminal Court, during which the jury were shown CCTV footage from Supervalu on the night of the killing which showed the deceased and another man threatening female cash attendants with knives before fleeing the store.

It was the prosecution’s case that Mr Wilson stabbed Mr Howe seven times as he attempted to make his getaway following an armed robbery at the store.