Tegan McGhee jailed for life for murdering Mason O’Connell Conway

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Tegan McGhee was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Central Criminal Court for murdering her partner’s son, Mason O’Connell Conway, aged four.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott also imposed four years and six months on each of two child cruelty charges, with both terms running concurrently with the life sentence.

McGhee, aged 32 and of no fixed abode, initially denied murder but changed her plea four days into her trial. She had admitted the child cruelty charges at the start of the trial.

Mason died on 16 March 2021 from injuries sustained three days earlier at the home in Limerick city where McGhee lived with his father, John Paul O’Connell. The trial heard that his death resulted from a traumatic head injury together with blunt-force trauma to his abdomen.

The judge said Mason had suffered repeated abuse and had been kept away from relatives and friends. He described the treatment of the child as a grave betrayal of trust. Although there was evidence McGhee was struggling to cope, the judge said punishment and abuse had continued.

Defence counsel Michael Lynn SC told the court that McGhee was deeply sorry. The court also heard that she had entered foster care at the age of 14 following her mother’s death.

O’Connell is separately serving seven years after admitting endangerment, neglect and impeding McGhee’s apprehension or prosecution, knowing or believing she had murdered his son.

The judge lifted the order that had prevented McGhee, O’Connell and Mason from being identified.