Kerry farmer trial: My brother's good character 'shredded', court told

The manner in which the good character of a farmer, who was killed when a neighbour drove the prongs of a teleporter into him, was "shredded" during trial was "even more harrowing" than hearing the "grotesque details" of how his life ended, the victim's brother has said.

“Every story has two sides and there was only one side of the story told during this trial,” Seamus O'Mahony told the Central Criminal Court in a victim impact statement today, adding that his brother was not there to defend his “good name”.

A jury sitting in Tralee last month found dairy farmer Michael Ferris (63) not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of his neighbour Anthony O’Mahony (73) by a majority verdict of 10 to two.

The victim’s brother said today that his family now “live in fear” knowing that Ferris will be released from prison some day and they will have to pass each other again on that “small country road”.

“He (Ferris) said he snapped once, what is to stop him snapping again and doing something similar,” the court was told.

The man said the deceased’s family have felt “totally cut off and isolated” in their north Kerry community since the trial, with people “too afraid” to speak to them about the legal proceedings and Anthony. “People will remember my brother the way he was depicted in the trial and this hurts us greatly,” he said.

The testimony was heard as part of a victim impact statement read by the deceased’s nephew on behalf of his father Seamus O’Mahony, brother of Anthony O’Mahony, during Michael Ferris’ sentence hearing today.

The two-week trial, which ended last month, heard evidence that tillage farmer Anthony O’ Mahony suffered "catastrophic injuries" after he was repeatedly stabbed with the prongs of the teleporter while he sat in his car.

Mr O’Mahony said that his brother did not “stand a chance” when the heavy industrial machine was driven into his car that morning by Ferris and he was “totally ambushed in an intentional act that had been premeditated as outlined during the trial”.

“Ferris admitted that he parked the teleporter to stop Anthony from coming down the road and he intentionally drove the teleporter at Anthony’s car. The last thing Anthony saw were the forks of that teleporter being driven at him and I cannot get that image out of my head,” added Mr O’Mahony.

Ferris of Rattoo, Ballyduff, Co Kerry, had denied murdering neighbouring land-owner Anthony O’Mahony over the use of a crow-banger for scaring birds at Rattoo on the morning of April 4, 2017. The trial was told that the noise from it “would wake the dead".

Brendan Grehan SC, defending bachelor farmer Ferris, said in his closing speech last month to the jury of seven men and five women that he made no apology for speaking ill of the dead, which was not a normal thing to do but the community in Rattoo was being "oppressed" by Mr Mahony and living in fear of a "totally unreasonable person".

The defence argued that there had been cumulative provocation because of the behaviour of the deceased and the fair and just verdict would be manslaughter. Mr Grehan said that Ferris was a good man who did a bad thing.

Seamus O’Mahony, the deceased’s younger brother, said in his victim impact statement today that this was “the most horrendous ordeal” their family had ever experienced and they will never recover from it. Words could not describe how they are feeling, he commented.

“First, we lost a brother, an uncle and a friend, in the most horrific way imaginable, then, we had to endure a two-week trial, which has devastated my family. As difficult as it was to hear the grotesque details of how Anthony’s life was ended on the morning of April 4 2017 in Rattoo, the way his good character was shredded during the trial was even more harrowing and emotionally stressful, he said.

Anthony O'Mahony

"Every story has two sides, and there was only one side of the story told during this trial. Anthony was not there to defend his good name and we were not given a fair opportunity to show what kind of a man he truly was,” he said.

Mr O’Mahony said it was printed in the media during the trial in Tralee that Anthony’s neighbours were living in fear. “We have had some of his closest neighbours to where we were raised and where he lived all his life, visit us since the trial to say how hurt they felt by these comments. There are so many people in the community in Ballyduff that have only good things to say about Anthony.

"However, this side of the story was never given during the trial and it distresses me so much,” he remarked.

'A man of immense honour and pride'

Mr O’ Mahony said Anthony was his “big brother”, the eldest in the family and they grew up on a small farm. There were “close siblings” throughout life, he said, and worked closely together “right up until his unlawful killing”.

His said his brother was a man of immense honour and pride, a hard worker and an upstanding member of the community with high moral standards. “He was a passionate farmer and he spent his life educating himself about farming, he was 100% committed to it,” he said. Mr O’Mahony said he knew in his heart and soul that Anthony was decent and honest, a good, kind and caring man and he would never have physically hurt anyone, despite how he may have been portrayed during the trial.

Mr O’Mahony said they bought the farm in Rattoo in 1984 and it was an “exciting and challenging time” for them. “We got great pleasure out of working together and running a successful vegetable business. We created valuable employment for so many families in the community during the 1980s and 1990s, when there was very little other job prospects in the area,” he said.

“We spent many happy years working the lands in Rattoo. My young children spent all their summer holidays from school working there packaging vegetables with us and I have warm and happy memories of that time. Now, when I visit the farm, I have a dark feeling, a feeling of dread, fear and anxiety.

"It will never be the same for us to farm there now,” he commented.

Mr O’Mahony said the last time he saw his brother Anthony was on Saturday, April 2 2017. “My son and I had gone to Rattoo to prepare the plough to till the remaining land for sowing that year. Anthony arrived down and told us he was going to turn the banger on. I knew there was an issue about the banger with some neighbours in Rattoo but we did not know the extent of their anger. One of the things that hurt us most is that they never approached me about it. It all could have been avoided if they had come to me directly, we could have come to some peaceful arrangement.”

The man said that to be killed over a crow banger, an implement that is so commonly used by farmers throughout Ireland “just beggars belief.”

A 'living nightmare'....

Mr O’Mahony said his brother was looking forward to the cereal-sowing season ahead and the new challenges that it would bring. They had travelled to a tillage machinery show in Kildare in October 2016 and they were looking to invest in a new corn drill. “Anthony was looking to the future and was keen to help my son take over the farm and continue his work of the past 50 years. He was denied the opportunity to hand down all the farming knowledge that he had learned along the way and this upsets me greatly,” he said.

Referring to the morning that his brother was “brutally taken away” from them, Mr O’Mahony said he was out doing deliveries for his concrete business and received a call from his wife saying something had happened to Anthony in Rattoo. “Immediately I thought it was an accident. When I arrived home I was met by a friend who was there to sympathise with me at the loss of my brother. I was shell-shocked, for a moment everything went blank, I couldn’t believe what I had just heard,” he said.

Mr O’Mahony said he drove to Rattoo and met his son and nephew, who both confirmed to him “this living nightmare”.

“I couldn’t believe that he was gone, I couldn’t understand it. The gardai told us that a man was arrested. For what? Over what? What had happened that morning? We couldn’t get our heads around it. There was a mention that it could have been over the crow banger. It couldn’t have been. Could it? Who would do something so unspeakable over a crow banger,” the court heard.

Mr O’Mahony said that he could not bring himself to identify his brother’s body and see him for the last time “in that way”. Instead his son and his nephew identified his body and were subjected to seeing him for the last time in that way. “We were denied an open casket, denied a critically important part in the grieving process, a chance to say goodbye, because he was so horrendously injured in that defenceless attack,” he said.

Mr O’Mahony said he and his son continue to farm the land in Rattoo, where his brother was killed and in order to travel there they have to pass by the scene where “his life was ended so savagely”. “It is hard to explain the list of emotions I feel every time I have to do this. It will never be the same for us and we will never recover from this,” he commented.

In conclusion, Mr O’Mahony said the defendant has never once expressed any remorse since he took his brother’s life or at any point to them as a family. “Never once has he or his family apologised for his actions. That speaks for itself really,” he said.

Anthony O'Mahony's funeral.

A second victim impact statement was read to the court by Mr O’Mahony’s niece on behalf of her mother, Angela Houlihan, who is Mr O'Mahony's sister. She said April 4, 2017 was the day that changed their lives forever. Ms Houlihan said her “heart sank” when she turned on the radio at 9am that morning and the headline was that a man’s body had been found in Rattoo, adding that the townland is a quiet area and not many people live down that road.

“I knew my brother used to go down every morning around 7.45am and the first thought that struck me was that maybe he had suffered a heart attack and somebody had found a body and called the gardai. If only that had been the case because what was to unfold later was a living nightmare and will continue to haunt me for the rest of my life,” she said.

Before gardaí had a chance to confirm things to the family, she said, it appeared the community at large seemed to be aware of what had transpired. She asked her son to go to Anthony’s house to see if his car was there but she knew “deep down” that it would not be.

“A sudden death is hard to cope with, an accident is devastating but what happened on that morning is something we will never come to terms with,” she said

Ms Houlihan said that every time she sees a teleporter she thinks of that morning and how that was the last thing Anthony saw, along with the face of the person who ended his life.

“We have all heard how Anthony’s car was hit repeatedly and pushed from one side of the road to another before being abandoned in the ditch. He could have stopped after the first blow but he just kept on going. Ms Houlihan said a few weeks later she received some of her brother’s belongings which had been in the car with him that morning including his “blood-stained watch” which “remarkably was and is still going today”.

She said as they live in a community where everyone knows each other, everyday life is hard with memories of that day never far away. “I never know what sight or sound will spark a memory”, she said. In the stillness of the graveyard where Anthony is buried one can hear bangers from time to time, she said, which is a “common sound” in the country but which was “not acceptable” in Rattoo.

“Anthony had farmed in many locations over the years and there was never an issue with neighbours or crow bangers. He must be the only man who was killed over one of these,” she commented.

She said her brother was very knowledgeable and well-read, especially when it came to “all things horticulture” and he was happy to share this knowledge with anyone who went to him for advice. If there was something he did not know, he would make it his business to find out the answer. He was not into computers or mobile phones and preferred to get his knowledge “the old-fashioned way”, through books and papers. “Anthony loved farming, everything he grew, it was done with pride and perfection and he loved when it was time to harvest the corn,” she said.

'Totally and utterly mutilated'

Ms Houlihan said she brought Anthony his dinner everyday for the past 20 odd years and little did she know that April 3, 2017 would be her last time doing this because she never saw him again. “We had our last chat that afternoon,” she added.

She said her brother left his home that morning and drove the short distance to Rattoo, except that morning he never made it to his farm and he never came home again. Instead he was removed from his car and put in a body bag.

He went down the road before 8am, she said, and he lay in that car until Dr Bolster came around 5.30pm that evening. Ms Houlihan said she never got the chance to say goodbye because they could not have an open casket as his body was “totally and utterly mutilated”.

“Rattoo road has such an eerie feel to it now. Every time I pass it, I bless myself and my eyes fill with tears when I think of how he was tortured that morning. Eighteen months have gone by and the pain is as raw today as that first day. My brother was a hard-working, kind and generous man, he had his faults but which of us don’t. I keep asking myself over and over, do any of these faults mean he had to pay the ultimate price with his life? He is not here today to defend himself.”

Ms Houlihan called the trial extremely difficult and painful to sit through; listening to how he died generated memories that will remain with them forever. “Anthony was physically torn apart that day and his character has been constantly attacked since. As his sister, I have to speak for the brother and person that I knew who deserved dignity and respect but even in death he did not receive that. We have not seen any evidence of remorse or regret from that day in April right through to today and I don’t believe we ever will,” she said.

“There was no justification to what was done to my brother on April 4, 2017. My family and I will never be able to come to terms with the way Anthony died and will live the rest of our lives with the pain and loss,” she concluded.

Both witnesses sobbed as they reading their individual victim impact statements on behalf of their respective parents.