A Co Mayo man has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court, where he is accused of the manslaughter of Tom Niland, a 75-year-old retired farmer from Skreen in Co Sligo.
John Irving, 31, from Shanwar, Foxford in Co Mayo pleaded not guilty to four charges including the unlawful killing of Mr Niland on 30 September 2023 at Doonflynn, Skreen.
He also denied a charge of entering the home of Mr Niland as a trespasser, causing him serious harm and a charge of intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm and of falsely imprisoning Mr Niland.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Tony McGillicuddy SC told the jury that he would sketch out what the prosecution intends to prove in this case.
He said Mr Niland was born in June 1948 and had died on 30 September 2023.
He said it was the prosecution's case that he did not die at the age of 75 through natural causes but as a result of complications from blunt force trauma to the head following what he said was a serious and prolonged assault on 18 January 2022 at his Sligo home.
He said John Irving had been one of three men who broke into Mr Niland's home, assaulted him and left him there.
He says as well as burglary, Mr Irving was facing charges of false imprisonment and assault causing harm.
The fourth charge of the unlawful act of killing was dated 30 September 2023 because he said it was a matter of law that the date of death has to be used for a charge of homicide in this jurisdiction.
A jury of eight women and four men has been sworn in before Judge Eileen Creedon at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin.
She told the jurors that the accused had pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and other related charges.
The trial is expected to last two weeks with the jurors told they should be available 29 July.
Tony McGillicuddy SC told the jury that John Irving was entitled to the presumption of innocence and to his good name and that only goes if they find him guilty of one or all of the charges against him, to a standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
He said Mr Niland had been hospitalised following the assault in his own home and the jury would hear from the medical personnel involved in his case, as well as from the State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers. He said it was the prosecutions case that Mr Niland died as a result of the injuries inflicted on him in January 2022.
He said Tom Niland's home was in Doonflynn on the N59 road between Sligo town and Ballina, looking out across the hills towards Donegal.
He had lived across the road from the Calpin family and he had been out earlier that day before the assault took place that evening.
Mr McGillicuddy said Mr Irving, along with two other people had broken down the door of the house and assaulted him. The injuries Mr Niland sustained were witnessed by others as, at some time between 7pm and 7.25pm that evening, he was able to get up and go to his neighbours’ house.
A driver also had dash cam footage from his car, which he turned around when he had seen Tom Niland on the road. Emergency services were then called and the gardaí and an ambulance arrived.
Upon being assessed in hospital, Mr Niland was found to have significant swelling to his face and head as well as an intercranial haemorrhage and a fracture to the right orbit of his eye. He had bruising on the right hand side of his body, multiple rib fractures and blood in his chest.
Whilst he at first showed some progress in hospital, he was recorded as having suffered serious life-threatening injuries, and on 26 January that year his condition deteriorated and he was put on life support and a ventilator in ICU.
The prosecution says Mr Niland’s wallet was found on 22 January 2022, some distance over the mountain between where Mr Niland lived and Ballina. The wallet was found by a man out kayaking.
A pair of gloves was also found and it is the prosecution’s case that one of these gloves contained DNA belonging to John Niland on the inside and Tom Niland’s blood on the outside.
The jury is also expected to be shown CCTV footage about the movements of a white Vauxhall van, throughout the day of the alleged assault along the N59.
The Defence has yet to outline its case to the jury in a trial that is expected to last for two weeks.
The trial has concluded for the day and will resume on Monday.
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