The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment on an appeal by a teenage boy against the severity of the sentence of detention for life imposed on him for murder.
Darren Goodwin, of Graigue, Mountmellick, Co Laois, was found guilty at the Central Criminal Court last July of murdering Darragh Conroy (14), also from Mountmellick, in a field in the town in November 2003 in a row over a mobile telephone.
Mr Patrick Gageby SC, for Goodwin, said the main ground of appeal was that the trial judge ought to have imposed a determined, fixed sentence of a number of years.
Mr Gageby said it would have been more preferable if there had been a determinate sentence which would accord Goodwin "light at the end of the tunnel".
