Lillis should not profit from killing his wife

THE bumbling Mr Bumble in Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist declared the law to be an ‘ass’. He wasn’t, of course, reflecting on Ireland’s inheritance laws but the comment is prescient in light of the fact that wife-killer Eamonn Lillis emerges from prison today a wealthy man.

Lillis bludgeoned his wife Celine Cawley to death during a row at the family home in Howth, Co Dublin, in December 2008. The former television executive was jailed in February 2010 for seven years after being found guilty of manslaughter. He served just over five years at Wheatfield Prison as he was entitled to 25% remission on his sentence.

It is a well-established legal principle that nobody should be able to benefit from his or her wrongful conduct, especially a killer. In what is known as the ‘forfeiture rule’, that principle was put on a statutory footing here under the Succession Act, 1965.