A 62-YEAR-OLD man who killed his wife when he put his hands around her neck during a struggle after she came at him with a knife has been given a six-year suspended sentence.
Judge Patricia Ryan said Thomas Breen’s family accepted his expression of remorse as genuine and that he loved his wife Carmel very much.
In a statement by Breen, which was read out by his defence counsel, Deirdre Murphy, he said he was “deeply sorry for the hurt and pain caused to the family. I wish I could go back to that horrible night. I loved Carmel for 43 years and I still love her and miss her so much”.
Breen of Willowvale, Ballybrack, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the unlawful killing of 56-year-old Carmel Breen at their home on November 7th, 2008. He has no previous convictions.
Ms Murphy told Judge Ryan Breen had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife “in a final act of love” to avoid private details of their life being aired in court.
Judge Ryan noted that the post-mortem results showed very few injuries to Mrs Breen and that there was “no sustained struggle and no evidence of soft tissue injury”. She said the court accepted Breen’s remorse was genuine and suspended the six-year sentence for four years.
Breen killed his wife when he put his hands around her neck during a struggle after she came at him with a knife following an argument. He rang the Garda and reported what had happened.
Insp Eamon O’Reilly agreed with Ms Murphy that there was “an element of terrible bad luck” in that although Breen believed he had strangled his wife in fact the compression had created “interference with the nerves in her neck which caused her immediate death”. He agreed he was an “honourable man” who was “bereft by the loss of his wife”.
Insp O’Reilly told Sean Gillane SC, prosecuting, that Breen told them his wife came home drunk in the afternoon and later went for him with a knife. A struggle ensued in which he grabbed her hands before “in desperation” he put his hands to her neck and she collapsed. Breen told gardaí that his wife was a lovely person and that he would always love her.
One of the couple’s three sons, Trevor Breen, read a portion of his victim impact statement to the court. “I have tried to stay impartial in this mess and concentrate on my own family and not take sides,” he read. He said he did not condone what his father had done and there were times he could not speak to him. “Should my father be accountable? Yes. Should he go to prison? I don’t know, the courts must decide that.” He said he had been driving towards his parents house that afternoon but did not visit them. “If only I had gone in that day, this is what I will have to live with for the rest of my life,” he said. He added: “They loved each other too much to part but loved to drink too much to give it up.” He continued: “Our mother has been torn from us without a chance to say goodbye.”
Ms Murphy said there could have been legal defences to this charge, such as self defence, accident or misadventure but Breen had chosen to take responsibility for his actions. She said another reason he had chosen to plead guilty was to avoid having private details aired in court. “They had a loving and complex relationship. His final act of love is to come in here and plead guilty to manslaughter,” she said. “He is serving his own sentence every day.”