Man loses appeal on manslaughter conviction
Mum’s plea to prove trolls wrong on ‘thug’ claims
A MAN convicted of the manslaughter of his partner’s three-year-old child has had his appeal rejected by the Court of Appeal.
Liam Whoriskey (28) of Glenabbey Gardens in Derry had been convicted in 2019 of the manslaughter of Kayden McGuinness in September 2017 and an act of cruelty against the child in August that year.
He had originally been charged with the murder of the child but this was dropped to manslaughter and the jury returned an unanimous verdict of guilty after a trial lasting three and a half weeks.
Yesterday, the Appeal Court outlined their reasons for rejecting the appeal.
Grounds
The court stated that “there is no merit in the grounds of appeal overall and the convictions are safe”.
Judge Paul Maguire said Kayden McGuinness’ mother had gone out in the evening of September 16, 2017 leaving her two children in the care of Whoriskey.
The child was found dead by Whoriskey at 9.30am the next day.
The judge said there was no sense that the verdict was “unsafe” nor was there any “significant sense of unease” about the conviction. them to make their own minds up about what happened.
“He was still a child. The CCTV footage showed Josh didn’t get involved in that fight until his friend got stabbed in the back,” she said.
“That’s when Josh got stabbed. I didn’t watch it but the rest of my family did. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.”
Diane says she now hopes to meet with the Director of Public Prosecutions — and she hopes to take to the streets in a new protest.
Speaking about Mr Bento, Diane says he was able to return to his family in Brazil — while she continues to grieve the loss of her son.
“He walked away, he got back to his family and to see his kids. My child never gets to come home.
“Josh was meant to go to the debs the other night. I had to go over to a girl he was meant to do the debs with and my younger son whose only seven had to put the thing on her arm in Josh’s place.