Joleen’s family jump for joy after ‘pure evil’ killer admits murder

Joleen’s family jump for joy after ‘pure evil’ killer admits murder

5 February 2020

THE mother of Downpatrick murder victim Joleen Corr hopes that her killer Michael O’Connor is jailed for 15 years.

O’Connor finally admitted his guilt at the town’s Crown Court on Monday where his murder trial was due to start.

Carol Corr revealed that her eldest child had moved to Downpatrick to escape from O’Connor, her abusive former partner and father of her toddler son.

Mrs Corr said that she and her family jumped for joy when they heard O’Connor plead guilty to  murder.

“O’Connor is the biggest snake in the grass; he is pure evil and I wish my daughter had never met him,” said the distraught mother from West Belfast. “We are relieved that we didn’t have to go through the ordeal of the trial after everything else we have gone through.

“The judge said O’Connor would could get between 18 and 30 years of a sentence. I hope that it’s 18 and that means he will serve 15. If he gets that, I will be happy.”

O’Connor’s eleventh hour plea meant the end of over three years of pain, grief and anger for the family for the 26 year-old single mum.

Joleen was brutally attacked and left for dead by O’Connor in a domestic abuse incident at her Thomas Russell Park home in December 2, 2016.

She suffered several trauma to her brain, amongst other injuries, and remained in a vegetative state. Having spent six months in hospital, she was transferred home. However, following a court ruling in 2018, doctors withdrew treatment and she died on April 26 that year.

O’Connor (34), was initially charged with manslaughter but the charge was increased to murder last year.

Originally from Westrock, Grove in Belfast, O’Connor, whose address was given in court as care of Maghaberry prison, had also been charged with Joleen’s manslaughter but after his eleventh hour confession, that count was left on the books.

Judge Geoffrey Miller told O’Connor “there is only one sentence prescribed by law — that of life imprisonment.”

O’Connor’s defence barrister said he wished to apologise to the victim’s family for all of the “misery and harm that he had caused” and the distress he had brought on them and the victim herself.

Following O’Connor’s confession, Judge Miller commended the Corr family for the dignified way they had conducted themselves throughout the hearing.

During earlier legal submissions, the court heard that it was not the case that O’Connor intended to kill Joleen but, rather, that he punched her once and had intended to cause really serious harm.

However, her mother told the Recorder that Joleen, the eldest of her five children who had lived in Downpatrick for over a year, had confided to her in 2015 that O’Connor had been beating her from the very early days of their dating.

Mrs Corr said O’Connor had put her daughter “through hell” and that Joleen was living in fear.

She also revealed that O’Connor had used the guise of wanting to see the puppy Joleen had got for their son as a way to inveigle himself into her home on the night she was attacked.

O’Connor will be sentenced at Downpatrick Court early next month.