A Tipperary father of two, who shot another man in the face at a house party in Clonmel in 2006, has been jailed for life by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.
Leigh Crowe (33), Elm Park, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Owen Cahill (25), the attempted murder of Mark Doolan at the party on April 2nd, 2006, and an assault causing harm on Sharon Rossiter.
On the night of the incident, two masked men entered the house on the outskirts of Clonmel carrying a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun and a pump-action shotgun.
Sgt Barry O'Riordan told Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that one of the men walked up to Mr Cahill and shot him in the face at point-blank range. He died "almost instantaneously".
Mr Doolan managed to distract the gunmen momentarily but received a gunshot wound to his right arm. Mr Vaughan Buckley said he was still receiving treatment for his injuries.
Sgt O'Riordan said that when Crowe was interviewed, he asked gardaí what evidence they had against him. They told him he had been identified at the scene. Crowe replied: "That's bullshit. Nobody saw me, I had a balaclava and gloves."
Crowe told gardaí that if he went to prison "they" would get him but if he got out of the situation he would "go to Spain and never be seen again".
Sgt O'Riordan said Crowe had 23 previous convictions including eight for assault, two of which included serious assault.
Mr Cahill's mother, Catherine Cahill, said in a victim impact statement that there was no way to express "the pain, hurt and impact on the whole family" caused by her son's death.
She said when she heard the news "it was like there was nobody else in the room and the world just stood still".
Her daughter had "completely crumbled" when she lost her protective older brother; Mr Cahill's father was a "broken man".
She had no hatred for the men who had killed her son but wanted justice.
She said her son would not be able to see his son grow up and Cahill's son would grow up without a father.
John Kelly SC told Mr Justice Carney that a psychiatric assessment of Crowe suggested he had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after being shot in the back in front of his partner and two children 18 months before. Crowe believed Mr Cahill had been involved.
Mr Kelly said Crowe had a difficult childhood and had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He had started drinking heavily and taking drugs in his late teens. After he was shot, he entered a detox programme and got himself a job as a builder's labourer which he held for 15 months.
A few months before the offence he received information from gardaí that his life was in danger. He started drinking heavily, consuming a litre of vodka every day and he stopped going to work. He became increasingly paranoid and started taking speed to stay awake. On the day of the shooting he had not slept for several days.
Mr Justice Carney said that if people chose to "develop lifestyles revolving around the taking of drink and drugs, they should not then come into this court and seek to put them forward in mitigation".
He sentenced Crowe to life for the death of Mr Cahill with 15 years for attempting to murder Mr Doolan and five for assaulting Ms Rossiter. All three sentences are to run concurrently, backdated to Crowe's arrest.