‘I cried all day on Josh’s anniversary’
CLEARING NAME NOW AIM
THE devastated mum of stabbing victim Josh Dunne told how she cried from when she got up to when she went to bed the night of her boy’s anniversary last week.
Diane Dunne also revealed the heartbreaking moment Josh’s younger brother Braden, seven, told her recently “I miss him, Mammy” as the family continues to battle with their grief.
Josh was just aged 16 when he was stabbed to death at East Wall Road in Dublin’s north inner city on January 26, 2021.
She told The Star: “It’s very hard. I cried from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep on the day of his anniversary.
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“It shouldn’t be an anniversary for him passing away, it should be a celebration for him going off to play football with a professional club.”
Diane explained how Josh’s siblings are also struggling, with little Braden coming to her in tears recently as he held a teddy he has in memory of his big brother.
Mum-of-seven Diane told us: “Braden is only seven and he came into me and he had a teddy bear he has for
Josh. He just stood there and said “I miss him, Mammy.” I told him it’s OK to cry but that Josh wouldn’t want to see him sad.”
Around 50 pals of Josh gathered to remember him last Thursday two years on from his death. And dozens more attended a balloon release at Coultry Park in Ballymun, Dublin on Saturday.
George Gonzaga Bento admitted to stabbing Josh but was acquitted of the murder charge.
TRIAL: Gonzaga Bento
A jury accepted that it was a case of self-defence and he was found not guilty of murder.
The court was also told that Josh was unarmed during the incident. But Diane feels like her son’s name was “tarnished” during the case.
She is going to try to meet with officials from the Director of Public Prosecutions this week.
She said: “I can’t let it go. I need to keep fighting. All I want at this stage is for Josh’s name to be cleared.”
Ms Fonseca, from Formiga in Minas Gerais, Brazil, was a qualified librarian and graduated from the Centro Universitario de Formiga in 2018.
She moved to Cork in September last year and began working as a contract cleaner at the Mercy University Hospital.
More than €50,000 was raised in a special GoFundme page to help finance the repatriation of Ms Fonseca to her native city of Formiga.
She was buried on Monday, January 16.