The mother of a Limerick teenager who died after he was attacked by a group of men has pleaded for an end to the "senseless killings" in the city.
Bernadette Coughlan was speaking at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin after three Limerick men were jailed for the manslaughter of her son Darren (18) in November 2005.
Joseph Keane (19), Greenhills Road, Garryowen, and Richard Treacy (19), St Munchin's Street, St Mary's Park, were each sentenced to six years in prison. Shane Kelly (20), Oliver Plunkett Street, St Mary's Park, who had 71 previous convictions, was jailed for seven years.
As they were led away, the three smiled and winked at supporters in the public gallery.
Mr Justice Paul Carney heard that Mr Coughlan, an apprentice electrician, was an unwitting victim in a feud which had claimed the life of Keane's father Kieran, who was murdered in 2003.
The court heard that on November 4th, 2005, Mr Coughlan had gone out with his friends for the night when a car pulled up beside them in a laneway near the Moyross estate.
Keane was driving and Kelly and Treacy got out, Kelly mistaking Darren for a man called Mark Coughlan. Surrounded by his assailants, Darren Coughlan tried to hold them off with a beer bottle before running away.
He slipped on grass near the Limerick Institute of Technology in Old Cratloe Road and was beaten for about 30 seconds, leaving him with head injuries. He died in hospital three days after the beating. His organs were donated for transplant.
His mother told the court that Darren was a hard-working young man who loved music, a good sing-song and chatting up the girls. The image of her son running for his life and his last phone call, in which he spoke to his 10-year-old sister asking for help, would haunt her forever. "He loved life and had a great future ahead of him," she said.
Ms Coughlan said she had never seen any remorse from the three defendants over the way they had ended her son's life. They had left him for dead on the side of the road.
"Darren was an innocent victim and he didn't deserve to die. Even in his final moments he gave to others. The greatest gift of all is the gift of life."
Since his killing the main witness to Darren's beating, his friend Philip Healy, had lived with his family in a virtual prison, she said.
They were under 24- hour Garda protection and had security cameras around the home and steel shutters on their windows. Other family members and friends had been forced to move because of fear. "These senseless killings of innocent people must stop," she said.
The sentencing of the three men yesterday took place a week after the men who killed Kieran Keane lost their appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeal against their convictions for his murder.
Keane's and Treacy's mothers told the court yesterday their sons were remorseful. Sophie Keane said she had already lost her husband and did not want to lose her son as well.
Defence counsel Conor Devally SC said Keane had huge regret and acknowledged his involvement. Patrick Gageby SC said Treacy was a Leaving Cert student at the time of the incident and there was nothing to suggest until then that his behaviour had been anything less than satisfactory.
No one knew the assault would end in Darren's death, he said.
Counsel for Kelly, Brian McInerney, said Kelly apologised unreservedly to the Coughlan family. He asked the judge to take into account his poor education and the fractured domestic setting from which he came.
Mr Justice Carney said he did not accept any of them had ever shown remorse. He denied leave to appeal.