TWO MEN have been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a young Cork father who was found by his family lying in a pool of blood in the street.
The family of Brian McKee (24) wept and hugged each other last night when a jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork found Jason Quinlan (29) and John Brett (28) guilty of his murder.
Quinlan, Loughmahon Drive, Mahon, and Brett, Leitrim Street, both Cork, had both pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr McKee on August 25th, 2007, at Ballinure Avenue, Mahon.
The jury found both men guilty of murder by a majority of 10-1 after deliberating for nearly seven hours yesterday at the end of a trial which lasted for three weeks.
Mr McKee was stabbed 11 times when he was attacked by the two men close to his home in Mahon following a row involving himself, his former girlfriend, her sister and Quinlan.
His father, Patrick McKee, read a victim impact statement to the court on behalf of himself, his wife Peggy and Brian's brother and two sisters. He said: "Try to imagine the unimaginable on a personal level, try to imagine your worst fears coming home in a split second, your front door being battered in the early hours of the morning and knowing instinctively that when the door was opened, the unimaginable had taken on a life of its own . . . Brian has been stabbed, he is lying on the road bleeding, he is dying."
The former soldier and Belfast native said he had seen violence in the North in the early 1950s and again when he served as a soldier and had witnessed "man's inhumanity to man".
He and his wife Peggy had brought Brian into this world and they along with their son, Patrick, had watched him leave it "lying in a pool of his own blood in the street, gasping for breath".
Mr McKee said a biodegradable urn sat on the sideboard in their parlour and it contained all that remained of their beloved Brian.
"The brutal and total unnecessary act that deprived our family of Brian, and two innocent children of their father, has left its mark on us collectively as a family and as individuals."
He said the impartiality of the legal process had totally ignored what Brian was first and foremost, "a human being who was dehumanised by this case".
Mr McKee explained that like anyone else, his son may have been foolish and did foolish things at times.
"We prefer to think of him for his generous nature and his simplicity in his approach to life.
"He lived his short life to its fullest and only dwelt in the here and now."
He said the impact of his son's death had spread into the wider community of Mahon and Blackrock which was still shocked and stunned by the crime.
Outside the courthouse on Washington Street last night, after his son's killers were sentenced, Mr McKee said he and his family must now go back and try to find the pieces of their lives.
Det Garda Anthony Flynn told the court that Brett had 68 previous convictions for offences including criminal damage, assault, burglary and theft and had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for assault in March 2006.
Quinlan had 33 convictions for offences including threats to kill, possession of articles, assault and assault of a garda.
He was jailed for two years in April of this year at Cork Circuit Criminal Court for a serious incident that occurred in Douglas in 2006.
Mr Justice Paul Carney sentenced both men to the mandatory penalty for murder of life imprisonment to date from August 2007 when they were arrested.
He refused applications for leave to appeal made by defence counsel for Quinlan and Brett.
