A man jailed for nine years yesterday for the manslaughter of his wife is "a danger to life" and should ideally be held until it is safe to release him, the sentencing judge said.
The man has a history of violence and had allegations of serious assault pending against him from a previous partner he lived with in England before she died of natural causes.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said he would have preferred to protect the community by detaining him until psychiatrists said it was safe to release him, but he had to deal with him under the law as it now stands. The man was and would continue to remain "a danger to life", the judge said.
Patrick Joseph (P.J.) Collins (51), had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife Angela Collins, nee Keane. He was originally charged with her murder but when the prosecution accepted a manslaughter plea, Collins pleaded guilty on February 8th last.
The court heard he had not made a bail application since he had walked into a garda station on the day of his wife's death and confessed to having strangled her.
Sentencing Collins in Dublin's Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice Carney said he had given Angela "an unhappy marriage" and "an utterly pointless death".
The court heard that on the May bank holiday weekend in 1996, Collins went with his wife Angela from her family home in Hermitage Road, Ennis, Co Clare, to one of two houses he owned in Ballingary, Co Limerick.
The night before the killing, the couple drank in a local pub and Collins accused her of entertaining advances from a musician there. This would seem to have been the start of a row, the court heard.
The following morning Collins strangled his wife and then got into his car and drove to Newcastle West Garda station, arriving there at 1 p.m.
Insp Joseph Roe told Ms Maureen Clark SC, prosecuting, that when he entered the station, P.J. Collins repeatedly said to gardai: "I'm the man who murdered my wife - lock me up forever".
Angela Keane was a very outgoing person before her marriage to Collins but became "withdrawn" almost immediately afterwards. Relatives and friends noticed her appearance deteriorated completely and she appeared "withdrawn and unhappy".
At one point she expressed unhappiness about her marriage to one of her sisters and at a family wedding just before her death she told her sister she would meet her on May 8th to talk about her problems.
This meeting was never to take place. She was strangled on May 7th by the husband she met through a "lonely hearts" column in Ireland's Own magazine.
Her husband, P.J. Collins was born in the Channel Islands of a father who was a native of Ballingary. He was educated in the CBS college in Cork. He then moved to England and worked on building sites for many years.
Insp Roe said Collins was known for his "over-the-top reaction" to everyday disagreements. There was evidence from his own family that his mother was afraid of him.
He had spent time in a psychiatric hospital in Birmingham, where he was diagnosed as having "a severe personality disorder". He also had previous convictions in England, including one in 1984 for possession of a handaxe.
A report from Dr Helen O'Neill of the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin, where he has been receiving treatment, found him to have chronic paranoid schizophrenia and an underlying paranoid personality type. Angela Keane was never aware of his history of violence. They got in contact through the Ireland's Own advertisement in 1991 and a relationship slowly developed. In 1995, Collins returned to Ireland after his mother's death and in August of that year, he married Angela.
Eight months later, he walked into the Garda station and made "a series of confessions" which led to him being charged with her murder.
Ms Clark told the judge that immediately before his marriage to Angela in August 1995, Collins had been involved in "an episode of extreme violence with the woman with whom he lived with then in England".
For his client, Mr Anthony Sammon told the judge P.J. Collins was hoping and trusting in him he would "give him his just desserts" with reference to all his problems.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said judgments by superior courts were binding on him, and though he would ideally wish to imprison Collins until such time as he ceased to be a danger, he must impose sentence within the existing legal parameters.
He sentenced Collins to nine years imprisonment, dating from May 8th, 1996, the day after his confession to gardai.