Two men have been jailed by a court in the Dutch city of Rotterdam for the manslaughter of an Irish man who died in hospital after being attacked at a pub.
Niall Coyle (33) an electrician from Four Roads, Co Roscommon, suffered severe brain damage after he was attacked outside a bar in the town of Doordrecht. some 15km southeast of Rotterdam, last January.
Two Dutch men were found guilty of his manslaughter. Martin van der Wees (46) was jailed for nine years today, while his co-accused Paul van der Bor (46) received an eight-year sentence.
Judges said both were guilty of an act of extreme and senseless violence and deserved to be punished severely. Van der Wees was the more violent of the two, kicking Mr Coyle persistently in the head as he lay unconscious on the ground.
The public prosecutor had demanded they be jailed for 10 years, calling it a shocking and savage attack without provocation in which the victim was kicked to death.
The court also ruled that the convicted men pay €11,400 in compensation to the dead man’s family to cover his funeral and other expenses.
The trial heard that although Mr Coyle had dealt the first blow, it was not a severe one and did not warrant the level of violence that followed.
The trial had heard how the two accused, both of whom had previous convictions for violent assaults, were asked by the barmaid in the pub to help her throw Mr Coyle out after he was refused a drink because she wanted to lock up. An argument broke out and blows were exchanged as the two men pushed him out the door.
Witnesses described how Mr Coyle was kicked in the head repeatedly as he lay on the pavement outside.
During the trial, the two men admitted not remembering much of what happened on the night.
Mr Coyle had only moved to the Netherlands three weeks before his death. The trial heard that he had been drinking in another bar where he sang Irish songs earlier in the evening.
Mr Coyle’s brother Kieran was in court to hear the sentencing today. “We are satisfied with the verdict and punishment, we know it was heavy by Dutch standards,” he said afterwards. “Nothing will bring Niall back, we are utterly devastated.
“My brother would not stand on a fly, he did not deserve what he got, it was just terrible bad luck that he come up against these guys who were totally bad news,” he said.