A woman who helped dump a man\u2019s body in a quarry \u201clike a piece of rubbish\u201d and later expressed concern on social media for his wellbeing has been jailed for six years.<\/p>\n
Judge Kerida Naidoo at the Central Criminal Court said on Monday that the defendant, Jane Corcoran (34), lied to garda\u00ed about the circumstances surrounding the death and disappearance of Stephen Ring in 2024.<\/p>\n
She falsely accused another man of having assaulted Ring and wasted Garda time and resources that should have been used in the search for the deceased. His body remained in the Carrigfoyle Quarry, Co Wexford, for 13 days before being discovered by two children out fishing. It was decomposed and had been fed on by fish.<\/p>\n
Naidoo said Corcoran lacked insight into her offending and has engaged in a \u201cdegree of victim blaming\u201d by suggesting to probation officers that Ring was responsible for what happened to him. Corcoran has told probation officers she and another man had been looking for Ring to repay a \u20ac900 drug debt, the judge said.<\/p>\n
Ring\u2019s last recorded movements date to October 15th, 2024, at about 2am, when he arrived at Corcoran\u2019s home. Less than two hours later, Corcoran was seen on CCTV reversing her car to her front door and helping to move Ring\u2019s remains, wrapped in a blanket, to the boot of her car. She then drove to the quarry where the remains were \u201cdumped\u201d in the water.<\/p>\n
A probation officer who worked with Corcoran since she went into custody in 2024 found that she appeared emotionally detached from the offence and had a limited capacity to explore how she could have acted differently. She was considered at a high risk of reoffending within the next 12 months.<\/p>\n
The judge also noted the impact on the family of Ring. At a previous hearing, the deceased\u2019s mother, Linda Ring, said she and her family were traumatised by how her son was dumped in a quarry \u201clike a piece of rubbish\u201d. She described Corcoran as \u201cpure evil\u201d and said she hoped she will \u201cnever find a day\u2019s peace\u201d.<\/p>\n
Naidoo said Corcoran knew she was increasing the stress and anguish on the Ring family by participating in the disposal of the body and by deliberately misleading garda\u00ed. The judge said the family had been left with \u201cdeep and abiding emotional scars\u201d from the impact of not knowing where the deceased was for 13 days, and the condition of the body after discovery.<\/p>\n
He set a headline sentence of nine years which he reduced to six years and nine months after considering mitigation, the most significant aspect of which was her guilty plea.<\/p>\n
He also noted that Corcoran had apologised to the Ring family but said her false expressions of concern for the deceased on social media were \u201cdifficult to reconcile with her expressions of remorse\u201d. He said the lack of remorse and the victim blaming noted by probation officers meant the value of her plea was \u201cless than it might be\u201d.<\/p>\n
In her victim-impact statement delivered in December, Linda Ring said her family had been \u201cdevastated\u201d by the way in which her \u201cwitty and generous\u201d son was taken from them. <\/p>\n
Corcoran, with an address at P\u00e1irc na Dara, Clonard, Co Wexford, previously pleaded guilty to impeding the apprehension or prosecution of another individual, knowing or believing that person to have committed murder or another arrestable offence, by assisting in moving the remains of Stephen Ring from her home.<\/p>\n
She also pleaded guilty to assisting the offender by telling falsehoods to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who helped dump a man\u2019s body in a quarry \u201clike a piece of rubbish\u201d and later…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-289940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}