A 35-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his partner in Co Clare last year.
Patrick Ballard, with an address at the Ashfield Hotel in Ennis, stamped on and kicked Sharon Bennett, a 29-year-old mother of two, in a public toilet in the Market area of the town in January last year.
She died in hospital two weeks later.
Detective Garda Noelle Bergin told the sentencing hearing at the Central Criminal Court today that Patrick Ballard has 140 previous convictions dating back to 2006.
Of these, 94 are public order offences, 21 are theft and seven are for assault, the most recent in October 2018 when he was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
He has hearing, speech and learning difficulties and a slight intellectual impairment and has been struggling with drink and drugs for some time. His life has also been one of homelessness and sheltered accommodation, a life of addiction and drugs from his early teens on.
Sharon Bennett's parents have been in court throughout the trial. In a victim impact statement, her father PJ said Sharon was their first born child, happy go lucky, a lovely daughter and mother, decent and kind.
He said she was loved by her family, her brother and sister and her eight and ten-year-old daughters. One made her communion this year and was the only child without her mother there.
Mr Bennett said their lives were devastated, this was like a nightmare they can't wake up from. He said he was sorry he let her daughter down and did not protect her.
He said the family were unable to hold a proper funeral because of Covid. They were not allowed see her in Intensive Care for the first five days and had to talk to her through video calls.
"We were left with the task of turning off the machine and watching her slip away," he said.
"I do not blame Ballard family. I blame Patrick only. We have all lost here today."
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Defence Counsel Mark Nicholas described it as an extremely sad case, life lost needlessly and violently and extremely difficult for the family.
He said he was "moved" by the Bennett family "reaching out" to the Ballard family who were also in court.
He said Patrick Ballard admitted what he had done and is ashamed by it.
He said Sharon Bennett was "a blameless woman".
Patrick Ballard lived "a disordered, chaotic life", and has accepted responsibility for "this untimely, unnecessary and unnatural death", he said.
"He reiterates the apology for this awful situation he brought to bear on the family," he said.
Mr Justice Paul Burns described the murder of Sharon Bennett as "a terrible ordeal for Bennett family".
He said the circumstances of the killing were "harrowing and grim indeed", it was a "brutal and sustained attack", and Ballard "brushed asides efforts of another man to intervene".
"The ferocity of the attack is truly shocking," he said.
The judge also said that this was yet "another violent killing where the victim is a woman, the perpetrator a man, with whom she had a relationship".
Sharon Bennett, he said, was "totally blameless". "Only the accused is to blame for what happened here," he said. The judge sentenced Patrick Ballard to the mandatory term of life in prison.
"She was a loving daughter and a loving mother. We loved her to bits ... and our lives are devastated."
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) October 7, 2022
PJ Bennett said that he and his family's lives were devastated following the murder of his daughter Sharon Bennett in Co Clare last year | https://t.co/8ptxXz6lpI pic.twitter.com/r7wjW90YfQ
28 January 2021
Sharon Bennett had been in a relationship with Patrick Ballard for a few months. They were habitual drinkers and on 28 January 2021 they had been drinking with about four or five other people in a covered area in the car park.
An argument broke out between them and Ms Bennett kicked Ballard in the face while he was sitting on the ground. The attack was witnessed by the other drinkers and by skateboarders who also used the car park. It was also captured on CCTV.
The situation calmed and the couple along with another man Hussein Abdullah, who was known as Jamsie, moved to the nearby public toilet, a single cubicle unit, to stay out of the rain and drink together.
However, when they were in the toilet, Ballard violently attacked Ms Bennett and although 'Jamsie' tried to intervene, Ballard pushed him away and out of the toilet, turned and continued the attack.
Members of the public and motorists saw a man in the doorway repeatedly kicking and stamping on something but did not realise it was Sharon Bennett's head.
A witness heard him shout to her: "Are you happy now? You won't do that again."
Ballard was also seen walking away from the toilet and walk back a number of times to kick Sharon Bennett and he kicked her up to 20 times.
An off-duty garda who was passing was first on the scene, the emergency services were called.
Ms Bennett had sustained severe head and face injuries, never recovered consciousness and died in hospital on 10 February 2021.
Patrick Ballard left the scene before the emergency services arrived and while the incident was not captured on CCTV, footage shows him walking away.
He went to a takeaway where he demanded free food, crossed the road and kicked out at a passing car before returning to the hotel where he was staying.
The manager saw he was covered in blood and Ballard told him he thought he had done something bad; "I think I killed Sharon." He kept pointing to his shoes and said he had hurt Sharon badly.
The manager, who was a Simon Community worker, called the gardaí and the 35-year-old was arrested.
He told the garda: "I did something bad down the market," and became upset. He also said: "I danced on her head."
During the garda interviews he accepted that he had attacked Sharon Bennett but claimed she had attacked him first and that he "lost control". He also said he "snapped" and regretted what he had done.
Patrick Ballard was initially charged with assault but subsequently charged in March of last year with the murder of Sharon Bennett, after she had died.
Patrick Ballard initially denied the charge of murder but yesterday, two days into the trial, he changed his plea to guilty.
