The killer who punched an 88-year-old hospital patient to death was told by the family of the victim on Friday that he deserves no pity and no leniency and that he extended none of those qualities to their wonderful, gentle father.<\/p>\n
Dylan Magee, aged 33, of 30 Churchfield Green, Cork, appeared in court for sentencing after being found not guilty of murder but guilty to manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, for killing Matthew Healy\u00a0 on January 22, 2023, at Room 2, St. Joseph\u2019s Ward, Mercy University Hospital.<\/p>\n
The deceased man\u2019s daughter, Claire Healy, spoke for the family and recalled how they repeatedly heard from mourners at his funeral that he was a true gentleman, kind, humble, and unassuming, with a gentle soul and a warm, sincere presence, always smiling and pleasant, with a caring manner that made people feel at ease.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe treated everyone with respect and deserved the same in return. He always thought of others before himself. I have little doubt that our poor Dad was lying awake all night before he was attacked, absolutely petrified about what was going on in his room at the Mercy Hospital, but too polite to say anything for fear of offending the perpetrator or not wanting to inconvenience the staff,\u201d Ms Healy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWords can’t express how traumatising it has been to discover that the attack was carried out by someone who went on a drug binge, suffered delirium from the withdrawal, and then pleaded diminished responsibility,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Detective Garda Michelle Quinn said the late Mr Healy had been admitted to hospital for general medical care after falling at home. Magee was admitted for psychiatric care as he was experiencing delirium and hallucinations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both men ended up in the same room, together with four other men. During the night, one patient was so concerned about Magee that he asked to be moved from the ward.<\/p>\n
Magee was given sedatives and a special care assistant \u2014 employed for patients who are elderly, incapacitated, or intoxicated. In the early hours of the morning he went to Mr Healy\u2019s bed and punched him repeatedly in the face, shouting in a delirious state that the victim had eaten his child.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Brendan Grehan, defending, repeated an apology to the Healy family from Magee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He referred to a psychiatrist\u2019s comment that a regime of psychiatric medication over an extended period would have been necessary and that what had been given by the time of the fatal incident could be compared to a cup of water on a fire.<\/p>\n
Magee had 25 previous convictions including one for robbery, two for assault causing harm, one for having drugs, and one for stealing a car.<\/p>\n
Jane Hyland, prosecuting, said the DPP put the case in the sentencing range of 15-20 years, before taking into consideration diminished responsibility and any other mitigating factors.<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Siobh\u00e1n Lankford said there was a lot to consider and will impose sentence on April 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She previously said that one could reasonably conclude\u00a0 both Magee \u2014 who had been admitted for treatment for delirium \u2014 and 88\u2011year\u2011old Matthew Healy, who was admitted after a fall at home, were let down by the system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The killer who punched an 88-year-old hospital patient to death was told by the family of the victim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-368432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368432","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=368432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}