Members of the family of convicted murderer Jozef Puska have been jailed for terms of between 20 months and two-and-a-half years for offences connected with the murder of Ashling Murphy almost four years ago.
Puska's brothers, Marek Puska and Lubomir Puska, as well as Jozef Puska's wife, Lucia Istokova, were convicted of withholding information from gardaí.
The maximum sentence for this offence is five years.
The brothers were sentenced to two-and-a-half years. Istokova was jailed for twenty months.
Legal sources say they are among the first people to be successfully prosecuted for this offence.
Puska’s sisters-in-law, Viera Gaziova and Jozefina Grundzova, were found guilty of assisting an offender by burning Jozef Puska’s clothes after the murder of Ms Murphy in January 2022.
This offence carries a maximum sentence of ten years.
Gaziova was jailed for two years, Grundzova was jailed for a year and nine months.
The court heard the child and family agency Tusla had assured gardaí that appropriate arrangements had been put in place to care for fourteen children who will now be left without their parents.
In victim impact evidence, Ms Murphy’s father, Raymond said the small comfort the family had that Jozef Puska was rotting in prison, isolated and alone would have been robbed from them, if the five members of his family had succeeded in hiding his guilt by withholding and destroying vital evidence.
He described how their beloved daughter had received a small pink plastic fiddle from Santa when she was around three years old.
He added that she had intended to give it to one of her own children so that they too could find a love of music.
But he said it would now remain in her bedroom, frozen in time, and unplayed by children Ashling would never have.
Mr Murphy said Ashling’s loss could not be measured emotionally, physically or financially and she could never be replaced.
He said the pain and suffering they were cursed to suffer every day was a life sentence, from which there were no appeals or paroles and from which no barrister or judge could ever free them.
Mr Murphy said listening to the horrors inflicted on Ashling during the trial of Jozef Puska two years ago was unbearable and something they would never recover from.
He said their wounds were ripped open again during this trial which could have been avoided if the family members had done the right thing and thought of others instead of themselves.
He said the family chose to close ranks and decided to protect the "animal" they called their husband and brother.
Mr Murphy told the court he had realised what Ashling had come to represent to so many people around the world.
He said she represented the best of everything Ireland was and her legacy would be beauty, kindness, compassion, talent, love and innocence.
He asked the Puska family what their legacy was.
Mr Murphy accused them of doing nothing for Ireland but damaging it beyond repair and he said they had come looking for a better life but had built it on a foundation of taking and never giving in return.
He said the family knew one of their own had murdered Ashling in the most horrific way imaginable.
Instead of coming forward, he said they had done everything possible to conceal what they knew and destroy vital evidence, in the hopes that the Murphy family would be left without justice or closure for the rest of their lives and Puska would be left free to roam the streets of Ireland, "possibly to do this all over again to another innocent family".
Ms Muprhy’s sister, Amy, said delivering a victim impact statement in Jozef Puska’s murder trial had a profound and lasting effect on her wellbeing.
But she had come back to court because it was essential her sister was represented, and her family’s voice was finally heard.
Ms Murphy said those who loved Ashling had few opportunities to speak on her behalf or convey the true depth of their pain and loss.
She added that legal proceedings would never be victim-focused and that imbalance should be acknowledged.
Ms Murphy said she did not want to give away any more precious memories of her sister.
She became emotional as she described how they had spent hours learning, listening and practising music together.
She said the void Ashling left behind was immeasurable.
Ms Murphy accused the defendants of demonstrating a profound disregard for Ashling’s life and the pain their actions would cause by choosing to assist the man responsible for taking her sister’s life.
She said the fact that they had children should not be a shield from accountability.
Ms Murphy described how her most persistent, consuming emotion since losing her sister had been anger.
She said she was angry at the "injustice of it all" as well as the enormous public cost of the legal proceedings.
Ms Murphy added this money could have been directed towards vital and underfunded services across Ireland.
And she said her frustration was shared by "countless hardworking people who contribute honestly to this country".
She said the family felt as if they had been gaslit by the defence counsel, when they made their pleas in mitigation for their clients.
She said the lawyers spoke about the value the Puska family members placed on the importance of family, education and wanting a better life for the children.
However, she said this was completely contradicted by their actions.
Hearing these values twisted and used in defence of people who had demonstrated none of those qualities was infuriating, she said, and felt deeply insulting to Ashling, their parents, and "everything decent families stand for".
Ms Murphy accused the defendants of showing little sense of accountability for their actions and said they did not demonstrate any responsibility in their own lives.
She referenced psychological reports stating there was an expectation on men to provide economically in Roma culture.
She turned to Marek and Lubomir Puska and asked why they had not worked since moving to Ireland.
She said the five had made deliberate choices to lie to gardaí, destroy evidence and withhold information and said they had each chosen silent complicity when truth and courage were most needed.
Ms Murphy said Ashling’s absence had stripped the Murphy family’s lives of joy, colour and meaning.
She added what was left was "survival - nothing more".
In her sentencing remarks, Ms Justice Caroline Biggs said she was required under the Constitution to impose a proportionate sentence that took into account the harm done, the culpability of the defendants but also mitigating factors in their favour.
She noted that the offending was not in the highest category.
Ms Justice Biggs said in her view a collective decision was made by the family members on 12 January 2022 to withhold information.
There was a closure of ranks she said, a decision made to say nothing and to lie.
But she said this did not prevent Jozef Puska from being apprehended and convicted.
Similarly, she said the burning of his clothing had meant this evidence was not available to gardaí.
But again, she said it did not stop Puska from being found guilty and the objective of preventing him from being caught had not been achieved.
She said the accused had been trying to protect a family member and were not assisting a criminal gang or seeking financial reward.
Ms Justice Biggs said she had taken into account mitigating factors, including the fact that none of the accused had previous convictions, they had been compliant, they had apologised, their own lives had been upturned, they had ultimately provided information to gardaí and all had children.
She sentenced Marek and Lubomir Puska to two-and-a-half years in jail.
In the case of the women, she said the psychological reports did not say that they were coerced or intimidated by the men.
But she said the men did not need to do that as the reports outlined that in Roma culture the women were viewed as subordinate or subservient to men.
They were isolated from the wider community and in this case, they were told what to do and they did it.
The judge said this was a feature of the case she could not ignore, and she suspended the final six months of each of the womens’ sentences.
This meant Viera Gaziova was jailed for two years, Jozefina Grundzova was jailed for a year and nine months and Lucia Istokova was jailed for a year and eight months.
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The judge told the Murphy family that she was grateful to them for respecting the difficult process.
She also apologised to them that the process had exacerbated the pain they were already suffering.
She said she was acutely aware of how powerless the criminal justice system was to do anything to ease their pain and suffering which she described as unspeakable, unquantifiable and exceptional.
The court heard the defendants accepted the jury’s verdicts which means appeals against conviction are unlikely.
The Murphy family did not speak publicly after the sentencing.
Mr Murphy said they would need some time to process what had happened.
