A 40 year old man who kicked and stamped a fellow homeless man to death has been jailed for life
Christopher O’Sullivan, of no fixed abode but originally from Co Kerry pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of the father of one at a “tented village” on Mardyke Walk in the city on the 13th of October 2019.
A post mortem examination found that Timmy Hourihane died from blood inhalation and cardiac arrest.
He also suffered a punctured lung and one of his teeth was found in his stomach due to the severity of the unprovoked attack.
Yesterday’s sitting of the Central Criminal Court in Cork heard that Christopher O’Sullivan and his co-accused, 28 year old James Brady of Shannon Lawn Mayfield, had kicked and stamped on Timmy Hourihane’s head and body.
Brady was jailed for 11 years in April last year for the manslaughter of Timmy Hourihane.
Detective Superintendent Michael Comyns said O’Sullivan set fire to the victim’s tent after the attack and had disposed of the clothes he was wearing in a fire.
O’Sullivan later gave a witness statement to Gardaí where he claimed he had been asleep in his tent on the night of the attack.
In jailing O'Sullivan for life, Mr Justice Paul McDermott described the attack on Timmy Hourihane as a "shocking, unrelenting and savage assault on a helpless man who lay prone on the ground."
He said his death was the worst kind of killing adding that it ranks as one of those offences just short of murder."
