A 31-year old man who blacked out and could not remember why he beat a pensioner who later died in hospital has been jailed for 11 years for manslaughter.
Aaron Wolfe, of Glentrasna Court, the Glen, Cork, apologised and expressed remorse for killing 69-year-old Florence O'Sullivan of Adrigole in west Cork in March 2023.
Mr O'Sullivan was described by his brother as a kind and good-natured person who never failed to help people in trouble.
The Central Criminal Court heard he went to a pub in Cork City on 11 March 2023, for a cup of coffee and met Wolfe, who was drinking there on his own.
The two men were not known to each other, but struck up conversation.
Later, the court was told, they travelled by taxi to the Glen and then to Mahon in Cork, before returning to the Glen, where Wolfe was living at the time.
There was evidence that Wolfe was drinking Jägermeister in the taxis, and that he had drank six pints of lager in the pub.
At 8.15pm, gardaí received calls about a violent assault after the two men returned to the Glen, with Mr O'Sullivan covered in blood and Wolfe still kicking him as he lay on the ground.
Mr O'Sullivan was brought to Cork University Hospital, where he died almost a month later from a traumatic brain injury due to blunt force trauma.
Wolfe was originally charged with Mr O'Sullivan's murder, but the DPP later accepted his guilty plea to manslaughter.
He told investigating gardaí there was an altercation when Mr O'Sullivan did not leave the house in the Glen fast enough. But he said he had a blackout and could not remember why he beat Mr O'Sullivan.
Defence counsel Brendan Grehan, SC, said Wolfe had instructed him to apologise and to express his remorse to Mr O'Sullivan's family.
Ms Justice Siobhan Lankford said she agreed with the view of the DPP that this case fell into the most serious category for manslaughter.
She set a headline sentence of 17 years.
She noted that the attack by Wolfe on Mr O'Sullivan appeared to have been unprovoked, but she also said it was not a sustained attack and no weapon was used.
She reduced the headline sentence by three and a half years to give Wolfe credit for his guilty plea, which she said was of benefit to the prosecution.
She also noted that Wolfe had long-standing and entrenched addiction issues, and that a long prison sentence would have been difficult for him as he had been on a vulnerable prisoner regime for two years.
He was also an enhanced prisoner, due to his behaviour in prison and the fact that he was mannerly towards staff.
She reduced the sentenced by a further 18 months for this.
Finally, she suspended the final year of the sentence, on condition that Wolfe would comply with the directions of the Probation Service, address his addiction issues and his employment needs on his release from prison.
The effective sentence is therefore 11 years, backdated to when Wolfe first went into custody.
Judge Lankford expressed her sympathies to Mr O'Sullivan's family, saying he appeared to have been a lovely, very kind and gentle person whose loss was deeply felt.
