A man who kicked and stamped his elderly, sick father to death, was jailed for seven years yesterday.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Anthony ‘Tony’ Tims was attacked by his son Mark, 48, in home – “place where he ought to have been safe”.
While a jury found the killer lost control after his “irritable” father told him he wished he’d never been born, the judge said the victim “ought to have been ignored”.
Tims admitted manslaughter but denied his father’s murder at Rowlagh Green, Clondalkin, West Dublin, in July 2018.
His plea was rejected by the Director of Public Prosecutions but a jury acquitted him of murder and found him guilty of manslaughter following a two-week trial in January.
Judge Hunt said Mr Tims had celebrated his 74th birthday by going to the bookies and going to the pub with friends.
While both men drank, he said his son’s habit of boozing at home was a “bone of contention” between them.
When the older man returned home there was a “verbal exchange” and Mr Tims began to abuse his son.
Tims used a mug to strike his father using “significant force” and causing a “full thickness laceration on the forehead”.
The judge said when the deceased fell, his son “stamped and kicked him to the trunk and head”. The injuries, combined with a pre-existing heart condition, were fatal.
Although the jury had agreed that Tims was provoked by his father’s words, Judge Hunt said the abuse was not physical.
During a previous hearing the judge said he believes in the rule of “sticks and stones” and added: “I wonder whether provocation should be allowed in respect of words. We will see what the Supreme Court has to say about it in due course.”
Justice Hunt also noted that following the attack, Tims gathered his belongings and his bicycle and left.
He said: “He did not offer any assistance to his father when he recovered his composure.”
He also noted that his father was deprived of the enjoyment he would have taken from his usual habits of going to the bookies and having drinks with friends.
He said the accused’s daughter had lost a grandfather who doted on her and would grow up knowing what her father had done.
She had learned a lesson in “human cruelty” that a child her age should not learn, the judge said.
He set the headline sentence at 10 years but after taking mitigating factors into account, including his early guilty plea and cooperation with gardai, he reduced that to seven years and six months.
He suspended the final six months for two years on condition that he be of good behaviour and cooperate with Probation services for a period of 12 months.
The sentence was also backdated to July 2018 when Tims first went into custody.
