Paul Wells Snr given life sentence for murder of Kenneth O'Brien

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

Paul Wells Snr was convicted of murdering Kenneth O'Brien and sentenced to life in prison. The proceedings were reported on 6 November 2018.

Wells Snr denied a charge of murder. He admitted shooting Mr O'Brien and dismembering his body, but claimed he shot him during a struggle in a row. He said the row arose because Mr O'Brien had asked him to kill his partner, Eimear Dunne, and he had refused.

Mr O'Brien's torso was recovered from a suitcase floating in the Grand Canal near Celbridge, County Kildare. His dismembered remains were found in the canal in January 2016. Wells Snr said he panicked about disposing of the body and used a borrowed chainsaw to dismember it.

The prosecution said the killing was a premeditated execution. Senior Counsel Sean Gillane challenged the account of a struggle, citing a post-mortem finding that Mr O'Brien was killed by a single shot from a gun pressed against the back of his head. Defence counsel Michael O'Higgins said the evidence supported Wells Snr's account and argued that the shooting was justified by law.

The jury returned its guilty verdict after deliberating for just over five hours at the end of a three-week trial. In a victim impact statement, Mr O'Brien's father Gerry described the family's trauma and said his son had been hard-working and would remain in their hearts.