CONVICTED drink-drive killer Niall O’Halloran and convicted wife killer Richard Satchwell have found jobs working alongside one another in the kitchens at Limerick Prison.
The pair have been considered trustworthy enough to prepare and serve food at the prison officers mess.
Posts at the kitchen inside the Mulgrave Street prison are considered plum jobs for inmates who behave behind bars.
Although their crimes were completely different, the two men both attempted to lay blame with their individual victims.
Last year Satchwell, who was sentenced to life in jail, was found guilty by a jury of murdering his wife, Tina, whose maiden name was Dingivan, in 2017.
Tina Dingivan’s body was discovered by Gardaí six years after her killing, hidden beneath a stairs in the home she and Satchwell shared in Youghal, County Cork.
Satchwell (59) claimed Tina had run off with their life savings. He later claimed Tina had been abusive towards him and that he acted in self-defence after she attacked him – a claim refuted by the prosecution as well as by Tina’s family, and for which there was no supporting evidence.
Completely unrelated to Satchwell’s case, O’Halloran had been “steaming drunk” when he drove his car into a truck, killing the truck driver at Aradgh, County Limerick, in the early hours of March 18, 2022, his trial, held at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court, heard.
O’Halloran (57), of Woodfield Drive, Newcastle West, County Limerick, denied he was drunk, despite having a blood alcohol reading three times above the legal limit when the sample was taken while he was being treated in hospital for his own injuries hours later.
The court heard that, given O’Halloran’s blood alcohol level at the time the sample was taken, it was estimated he would have been six times above the legal limit at the time he collided with lorry driver, Arturs Birznieks, a native of Latvia who was living in County Mayo.
The jury took just over an hour to reach unanimous guilty verdicts against O’Halloran, who pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving and to driving while intoxicated.
The Limerick father of five was jailed for seven years and banned from driving for 10 years on May 20 last.
As he was led away to begin his sentence, O’Halloran shouted to family members: “I’ll appeal that, that’s a f****** disgrace.”
Judge Simon McAleese said O’Halloran showed not “a single jot of remorse” and had “gained no insight into his offending”.
When prosecuting barrister Lily Buckley recounted the evidence from O’Halloran’s trial that he had driven into the path of the lorry driver, O’Halloran shook his head and shouted in court: “I did not.”
Paramedics, Gardaí and a doctor who attended at the fatal collision told Gardaí they smelled alcohol off O’Halloran and that he was slurring his words. A doctor who treated O’Halloran in hospital said that O’Halloran was intoxicated.
O’Halloran told Gardaí that he had been drinking “shandys”, a combination of beer and soft drink, but that he did not regard these as alcohol drinks.
O’Halloran maintained that Mr Birznieks’ truck veered over onto his side of the road, and he told Gardaí that the lorry driver could have been asleep or dead in the moments prior to the fatal collision.
Judge McAleese said O’Halloran’s attempts to “blame” the victim for the collision were “atrocious and reprehensible”.
When Gardaí asked O’Halloran, following his arrest, if he had any sympathy for the victim, he replied: “I have enough to deal with my own injuries.”
Judge McAleese told O’Halloran after he was found guilty: “Your driving and your drinking killed a man. Putting it politely, you seem to be in denial about your wrongdoing, your appalling, egregious, dreadful behaviour.”
Ina Birznieks said her husband’s death “was an immense blow” to her and their two young daughters.
“He was not only a beloved husband but also a caring father. After his tragic death, our lives were changed forever,” Ms Birznieks said.
“Every day is filled with pain and grief,” she said.
“This tragedy has left a deep wound in our lives. There are things that can never be restored or fixed.”
O’Halloran had a prior conviction in 2011 for drink driving, and was given a three-year road ban and fined €400.