In the Central Criminal Court yesterday a man was found guilty of the murder of Mr Gordon Farrell.
After deliberating for eight hours and 38 minutes, the jury of eight men and four women returned a majority guilty verdict. Nicholas Donnelly (27), Talbot Green, Wexford, had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Farrell (20) on September 23rd, 2001.
Imposing sentence, Mr Justice O'Donovan said the only option available to him was a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Donnelly stood motionless as the verdict was returned, while his mother wept in the courtroom. The Farrell family sighed with relief as they sat at the back of Court Two in the Central Criminal Court.
Addressing the jury members, Mr Justice O'Donovan said they had "served the people of Ireland well" and released them from service for 15 years.
The five-day trial had heard that after Donnelly and his sister, Ms Michelle Donnelly, returned from a pub, a fight broke out in Bernadette Place, Wexford, and Mr Farrell was stabbed.
Ms Donnelly, a girlfriend of the deceased and mother to their daughter, Nicole (5), testified that her brother shouted to her: "I think I've after killing him." In cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, Ms Donnelly said Mr Farrell lost his temper easily and had used violence on many occasions towards her. She also revealed Mr Farrell had served over two years in jail for assault.
Donnelly admitted he stabbed Mr Farrell after he went to hit his sister.
In his evidence, Garda Ollie Daly stated Donnelly said he "had been dividing hash and he had a knife . . . I kept stabbing him. I just lost the head."
Donnelly's left earlobe was bitten off during the fight and last week it was admitted, complete with three gold earrings, as evidence in the murder trial.
The State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, gave evidence during the trial that Mr Farrell was stabbed 10 times and died from several knife wounds to the abdomen.
On the night in question, the court heard that five children under the age of 13 were present in Bernadette Place. Ms Diane Donnelly, now aged 16 and a sister of the accused man, told the jury she and her friends were baby-sitting Mr Farrell's daughter Nicole and her niece Louise with two friends.
When the fighting in the sitting room broke out after 1.30 a.m., Diane and the children went upstairs as she was "embarrassed because my friends were there".
During the closing speech for the prosecution on Monday, Mr John O'Kelly SC told the jury there were "glaring inconsistencies" in what Donnelly said happened on the night Mr Farrell died.
"There are two entirely different versions of what he says happened and the two can't both be true," he told the jury. The admission Donnolly made to Garda Daly was far different to what he later told the gardaí. "What he said to Garda Daly is that he stabbed him after Gordon Farrell locked on to his ear. The fight he said lasted 10 minutes, a fight that was between a man wielding a 10-inch blade and an unarmed man. On any reading that has to be a very unfair fight."
Donnelly was comforted by his sobbing mother, his father and sister Diane before being led away in handcuffs.
Mr Justice O'Donovan refused defence counsel an application for appeal.