Joseph Hillen jailed for manslaughter after sentence increased

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Joseph Hillen was resentenced to nine years in prison, with the final year suspended, by the Court of Appeal on 26 November 2019 after his manslaughter conviction. He had admitted killing taxi driver Martin Mulligan near Dundalk, Co Louth, in the early hours of 28 September 2015, but denied it was murder.

A Central Criminal Court jury found Hillen guilty of manslaughter. On 28 January 2019, Ms Justice Eileen Creedon sentenced him to seven years in prison, with the final year suspended. She said the verdict suggested the jury accepted that Hillen believed he was acting in self-defence.

In a voluntary statement before trial, Hillen said Mulligan stopped suddenly and a struggle followed. He said Mulligan had a knife, which Hillen took from him before jabbing out twice while underneath him. Mr Justice George Birmingham said the State Pathologist was prepared to accept that the injuries could be explained in the way Hillen described.

The Court of Appeal found the original sentence unduly lenient following an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It rejected the DPP’s submission that the offence was in the worst category of manslaughter, but placed it in the high culpability category. It fixed 12 years as the headline sentence, reducing it to nine for mitigation and suspending the final year to recognise the disappointment of a sentence being increased on appeal.

Mr Justice Birmingham said Mulligan’s car had been removed from the scene by Hillen’s companion and its keys thrown into a nearby field. Mulligan was left seriously injured on a remote country road without the prospect of getting away to summon help, the judge said.