{"id":400936,"date":"2026-04-16T03:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T03:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/400936\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T03:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T03:38:11","slug":"michael-kelley-assaulted-at-cork-prison-as-he-awaits-trial-over-mike-gaine-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/400936\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Kelley assaulted at Cork Prison as he awaits trial over Mike Gaine murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Kelley has been assaulted in prison as he awaits trial. He is currently detained at Cork Prison. The American man, 53, is before the courts<\/a> charged with the murder of 56-year-old Michael ‘Mike’ Gaine at his farm in Kenmare, Co Kerry, last March. Kelley received two black eyes from a suspected assault in a prison cell this week.<\/p>\n

It is understood that the murder accused was attacked by two cellmates in an incident at the prison, prompting prison officers to intervene. Mr Kelley was subsequently moved out of the cell to another location in the prison for his own safety. Mr Kelley, who is on remand awaiting trial, had been residing in a solitary cell but in recent weeks had been moved to a cell with other inmates, the Irish Mirror reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cork Prison<\/p>\n

Mr Kelley’s solicitor told the paper he was aware something had occurred after seeing his client with visible injuries while he appeared before the court via video link on Wednesday. “I saw the marks on him today on the video link and I tried to find out something about it. I gathered from the prison people without any detail that there was some incident involving him and I’m trying to get details of it. That’s as far as I can go at the moment.”<\/p>\n

Mr Kelley appeared before a sitting of Tralee District Court via video link on Wednesday morning. The court is understood to have heard that the book of evidence is not yet ready in the case, and Mr Mann, who is representing the accused, said he would proceed with the preparation of a bail application before the High Court.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelley was further remanded into custody for another two weeks. Back in February this year, Mr Kelley was arrested in the Tralee area and taken to Castleisland Garda Station, where he was questioned over a 24-hour period.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Gaine(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Gardai initially treated the disappearance of popular farmer Gaine, who was last seen at a Centra shop in Kenmare on the morning of March 20th, as a missing person’s case. His disappearance sparked a massive search of the land involving over 200 volunteers, the Civil Defence, the Coast Guard, the Defence Forces, a Garda helicopter, and multiple Garda units.<\/p>\n

In a media appeal, Gardai released CCTV footage which showed Mr Gaine, who they described as being approximately 5’10” with a stocky build, brown\/grey hair and a bushy beard, wearing his orange woolly hat, black fleece, blue jeans and black boots. The footage showed Mr Gaine leaving the Centra shop in Kenmare and getting into his jeep.<\/p>\n

Mike’s friend, local councillor Dan McCarthy, said at the time that his friend was in good spirits when he saw him before he disappeared. “He was in the same characteristics as he always was. He’d be one of the first in the valley to be up in the morning. He would be down to feed the animals, and he’d have a chat with a few fellas locally before he’d work his way back home again,” he said.<\/p>\n

It emerged that Mr Gaine was a well-known sheep farmer who frequented the Kenmare Co-Op Mart on a weekly basis. He was also a rally car driving enthusiast and was known to be well-travelled. Gardai later upgraded the case to a homicide investigation on April 29 and Mr Gaine’s wife Janice issued a public appeal for information on this date. Mr Gaine’s dismembered remains were subsequently found on his land on May 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Kelley has been assaulted in prison as he awaits trial. He is currently detained at Cork Prison.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-400936","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\/400936","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=400936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}