Killer farmer showed ‘no regret, no remorse’

Victim’s family in tears as 63-year-old cleared of murder but guilty of manslaughter

THE farmer who was found guilty of the manslaughter of 73-year-old John Anthony O’Mahony showed no reaction to the verdict. He had shown “no remorse” to the victim’s family, the trial heard.

Michael Ferris (63) of Rattoo, north Kerry, was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court in Tralee yesterday.

He showed no obvious reaction when the verdict was read out. The victim’s family, however, were visibly upset – they broke down in tears and shook their heads.

At least 20 members of his family, including his brother Seamus O’Mahony, sister Angela Houlihan and nephews and nieces, took up two benches in the courtroom.

Prosecutor Patrick McGrath had argued that the actions of Mr Ferris, the accused, were not consistent with a sudden loss of self-control or acting in a fury. “What is remarkable is his behaviour afterwards, the absence of regret, the absence of remorse, the absence of shock,” Mr McGrath had told the court.

THE question the jury had to consider in the killing of elderly farmer John Anthony O’Mahony was “not what had happened, but why”, the court had heard.

Michael Ferris (63), a bachelor dairy farmer, was on trial for murdering his neighbour on the morning of April 4, 2017 near to the 1,000-year-old Rattoo Round Tower, outside Ballyduff, Co Kerry. He has been found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.

The facts were accepted. The reason behind the killing had to be determined.

Mr O’Mahony (73), a tillage farmer from Ardoughter, was found dead inside his Peugeot 508, which had been embedded in a hedge.

Gardaí described how ditches and hedgerows were torn up either side. The car had large puncture marks on the bonnet and through the windscreen.

The body of Mr O’Mahony was found inside, still strapped into his seatbelt.

He had “catastrophic injuries” to his upper body, face, skull.

Up the laneway, reversed into the entrance to a milking parlour, was a 60-tonne teleporter. The two prongs of the yellow New Holland machine were covered in blood, glass and human body matter.

Most eerily, there was no one about, “not a soul” as they might say in this part of Kerry. “That was the alarming thing,” Garda Pat Naughton replied told Patrick McGrath, SC for the prosecution .

The trial focused on the character of the dead man and how he had provoked his neighbours relentlessly with a crow banger. Acknowledging people would not normally speak ill of the dead, Brendan Grehan SC said he made no apology for this. All of it was done so the jury could appreciate where Ferris was coming from, he said.

Mr O’Mahony had bought the 100 acres in Rattoo, with his brother Seamus, in the 1980s. He had 200 acres between Rattoo, Aroughter and Causeway. He managed everything about the tillage – spraying, planting, and protecting, from pigeons and crows, with a crow banger. He was “passionate about his crops”, his nephew James O’Mahony told the trial.

A picture of a man of routine also emerged. Every morning, from April onwards, on the button he would be in Rattoo, leaving his home at 8.45am, switching on the banger during crop planting time and again before harvest, his nephew said. There were two bangers in Rattoo but only one worked and it was used between the three farms, James O’Mahony said.