Two brothers have been found guilty by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of 33-year-old father-of-six Christopher Cawley in Dublin five years ago.
Warren Dumbrell, 36, and Jeffrey Dumbrell, 30, from Emmet Place Inchicore, had denied murdering Mr Cawley on 29 October 2006 at the Tyrone Place flats in Inchicore where the victim lived.
Mr Cawley bled to death after being stabbed six times in the back, hip and thighs during an attack that was witnessed by his wife and two of his children.
After a trial lasting 12 days, it took the jury of ten men and two women, nine hours and 41 minutes of deliberations to reach its verdicts.
Warren Dumbrell was found guilty by a majority verdict of ten to two. Jeffrey Dumbrell was found unanimously guilty.
In July last year, the Court of Criminal Appeal set aside Warren and Jeffrey Dumbrell's original June 2008 conviction for the murder of Mr Cawley, because it deemed it unsafe.
The court found that the jury may have been influenced by a lecture given in Cork during the trial by the trial judge Mr Justice Paul Carney.
In the lecture, which received much media attention at the time, Mr Justice Carney spoke of the rising numbers of stabbings and said victims felt sentencing in manslaughter cases did not reflect the seriousness with which society regarded the taking of human life.
When the case resumed following the lecture, the defence asked that the jury be discharged on the grounds that the lecture might have influenced the jury, but the request was denied.
The trial heard how Mr Cawley and a younger brother of the Dumbrells had arranged to fight one another at a piece of waste ground near Mr Cawley's home on the night of the killing.
The court was told that earlier that day Mr Cawley was involved in an argument with the Dumbrells' younger brother.
The Dumbrells claimed that they only went to Tyrone Place on the night of the killing to confront Mr Cawley, give him 'a few slaps' and tell him to leave their brother alone.
However, several witnesses told how they saw the two brothers chasing Mr Cawley.
Mr Cawley's wife, Janette, told the court that Warren Dumbrell was armed with a knife and Jeffrey with a hurley.
But the defence teams for the two men argued that Warren had the hurley and Jeffrey was unarmed but grabbed a knife being brandished by Mr Cawley and used it in self-defence.
Mr Cawley's wife gave evidence that during the chase, her husband fell to the ground in a stairwell, and it was here that the two Dumbrell brothers attacked him while she and her daughters pleaded with them to stop.
Mandatory life sentence
The court heard that Warren Dumbrell had 27 previous convictions stretching back to 1987 when he received his first for burglary aged just 13.
The others were for offences including assaulting a garda, robbery and possession of firearms.
Jeffrey Dumbrell had eight previous convictions for offences including theft and trespass.
A victim impact statement was read out on behalf of Mr Cawley's wife Janette by prosecuting counsel Paul Burns SC.
In it she said her family had been devastated since the loss of Christopher. She said her six children cannot see a future without their father in it.
The youngest child, she said, still waits for him to ring home and does not understand when he does not ring.
Another one of her children, who witnessed the murder, did not speak for three months afterwards. She said she was dependent on her children.
She said she had worked for nine years prior to his murder, but had not worked since. 'We just miss him,' she concluded.
Passing the mandatory life sentence on both men, Mr Justice Paul Butler paid tribute to the thorough and detailed garda investigation.
He also echoed the sentiments of Mr Justice Paul Carney on knife crime, saying possession of a knife is the same as possession of a firearm and should not be tolerated without a reasonable excuse. He refused both men leave to appeal.
Afterwards, the retired lead investigator in the case, Det Supt PJ Browne, paid tribute to the courage shown by the Cawley family and their neighbours who gave evidence and had to withstand enormous threats before both trials.
He congratulated them on not submitting to the pressure. He described the Dumbrell brothers as thugs and said the world is a safer place now that they are behind bars.
