A niece of a 78-year-old widower, who was kicked and stamped to death by his nephew, has told the Central Criminal Court that her family have experienced a raw, pervasive fear “stemming from the chilling reality of evil so close to home”.
The court also heard on Monday that older people in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare fear that what happened to John O’Neill could also happen to them.
Niamh Higgins, whose uncle was severely beaten by Thomas Lorigan (34) to the point where he was “unrecognisable”, told the Central Criminal Court that the “cruel loss” of Mr O’Neill to this “heinous murder has plunged us into a whirlwind of raw feelings”.
Ms Higgins said thinking of the injuries “being inflicted by a stranger” would be “horrendous” but knowing it was a relative who did it was “beyond torture”.
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The trial heard that Mr O’Neill had regularly helped one of his sisters, Geraldine, and provided financial assistance if needed when she and her husband split up. When Geraldine died, Mr O’Neill had acted as a guardian for her three children, including Lorigan, who was around 12 or 13 at the time of her death. Lorigan and Mr O’Neill had become estranged after the defendant turned 18, the trial heard.
Ms Higgins said pathology evidence about “the brutality” of the attack on Mr O’Neill left “an everlasting mark that has intrinsically changed us forever”.
“The fact that John was killed in the family home where four generations have happily lived till now, amplifies the impact for us all,” she said.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott said families get an important opportunity through victim impact statements to paint pictures of people whose lives have been taken.
“It’s very clear in this case and from what I have heard that Mr O’Neill’s memory will never be lost and he was a man who had high standing in the community and his family,” the judge said.
Three victim impact statements were read to the on Monday as Lorigan was sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment for murdering Mr O’Neill. The sentence was backdated to January 8th, 2022, when he went into custody.
Mr Justice McDermott said “the brutality” involved in the killing of Mr O’Neill would not be forgotten by anyone who saw the CCTV footage of the attack.
“The circumstances in which a family member was responsible for this, where there is no understanding of why it occurred at all, adds to and aggravates the nature of the offending. The shock is felt not only by the family but also by the wider community,” he added.
During the trial, the court viewed CCTV footage of the attack, where an assailant who the jury accepted was Lorigan, while wearing steel-capped boots, could be seen delivering measured kicks to Mr O’Neill and stamps to his head and neck.
Following the “vicious assault”, Mr O’Neill was left on the road outside his house for 40 seconds before being dragged by his jumper by Lorigan under the archway and into his kitchen.
A victim impact statement was also read to the court by Mr O’Neill’s eldest son, Sean O’Neill, who said “for all of us, our lives have been changed forever” by the “devastating loss of our dad”.
“It is impossible to put into words the traumatic, brutal and horrific way in which he died and how hard it has been to comprehend it emotionally and psychologically,” he said.
“I know from speaking to locals in Lisdoonvarna, the elderly people in the area have the same fear and suffer the same trauma; worried what happened to our dad could happen to them.”
In a third statement, the deceased’s youngest son Graham O’Neill said he had read newspaper headlines about a ‘Lisdoonvarna pensioner’ and that his father would be “going mad over that as he never saw himself as old”. He said his father was a fit and active man who loved company and was rooted in his community.
“The thought of someone who would do such a thing ever walking free fills me with the most awful dread,” he added. “No one in their wildest nightmares would fear his life would end like this. We fear it could happen again, there has been no remorse, no admission, no guilty plea. A sorrow hangs over us, we try to push those awful images from our minds, we fear the day this person walks free.”
Earlier this month, Lorigan, of no fixed abode, was found guilty by unanimous jury verdict of murdering Mr O’Neill at St Brendan’s Road, Lisdoonvarna on a date unknown between January 6th and 7th, 2022. He had pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The trial heard that Mr O’Neill lived alone and previously ran a bed and breakfast at his home along with his wife, who died in 2021.
The jury unanimously agreed with the prosecution case that Lorigan was the man caught on CCTV delivering calculated, “well-aimed” kicks as Mr O’Neill lay helplessly on the ground outside his home.
Det Insp Padraic Frawley told the court that Lorgian has two previous convictions for,trespass with intent to commit an offence in 2011 and a drugs offence in 2021, for which he received a fine.
There was no known motive for the murder but State prosecutors submitted the fact that there was no cash robbery and that family photos were found smashed suggested the killing was “something personal”.
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