LAST UPDATE | 8 Jul
THE ACTIONS OF a 22-year-old criminal who harassed and tormented a vulnerable man with a brain injury before stabbing him to death in his own home have been described by the victim’s family as “nothing but evil”.
The Central Criminal Court heard today that days before murdering Christopher Hall, Owen Maughan had brought him to an ATM, where the 65-year-old victim withdrew cash and handed it to his killer. Hall’s phone was also found in Maughan’s bedroom.
Maughan was today sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment for murdering 65-year-old Christopher Hall. The sentence was backdated to 4 July, when he went into custody.
Maughan of Dun Saithne Avenue, Balbriggan appeared at the court today for his sentence hearing, having pleaded guilty last month at a Central Criminal Court pre-trial hearing to murdering Hall at his home in Dun Saithne Green, Balbriggan, Co Dublin between November 23 and 24 2021, both dates inclusive.
The court heard such were his injuries, Hall’s body was unrecognisable to his family.
Hall’s daughter, Rebecca, told the court today that the decision by Maughan to plead guilty to murdering her father does not change anything for her family, as it “does not undo or justify” what he did and will not bring her father back.
She added: “You took the life of an innocent and vulnerable man that had a brain injury, your murderous crime on him was heinous and barbarous and my family will always wonder why you did this. It was senseless, you took his life in his own home, where he lived alone, a place where he was supposed to feel safe and secure, your actions were nothing but evil”.
Ms Hall said she had found her father’s body on the floor between two chairs in their sitting room and that he was lying on his back in a pool of his own blood.
“He was clothed but his clothes looked like they had just been thrown on to answer the door. I always think he must have only got out of bed moments before his life was taken”.
She continued: “I had planned to bring dad to the garda station that day because you had harassed him and stolen from him days before taking his life. When I couldn’t reach him, I thought that maybe his phone was stolen again but I would soon discover it was much worse than that”.
Ms Hall said she arrived at her family home and the first thing she noticed was her father’s curtains closed, which she described as “very abnormal to see because he got up every morning and pulled them open”.
“When I saw this, I felt instant panic that something bad had happened. I was filled with dread and fear as I talked to my sister on the phone outside dad’s house. I was terrified to go inside, I knocked on the window to see if there was any response before going in, dad’s dog came to the door but there was nothing else, my dad did not come to the door and nor would he ever again”.
Ms Hall told her father’s murderer that the injuries he had inflicted on him “were brutal and fatal”.
“At dad’s funeral we requested an open coffin because we needed to see him and say goodbye. Thankfully we were able to but what we saw when he was laid out looked nothing like the ‘Christy’ we knew, he was unrecognisable with the amount of make up the undertakers had to use to cover his injuries”.
She continued: “What you did to my dad was undignified and we should have never had to lay him to rest that way. My last visual memories of my dad are him bludgeoned to death in our home and the aftermath of seeing his appearance looking completely altered in his coffin. I will never erase these images from my mind, and they will haunt me for the rest of my life”.
She said her father was a “quiet and gentle old man who lived a simple life. You tormented and took advantage of him for your own nefarious reasons and had caused so much distress for him in the days before you killed him”.
Ms Hall said not only has her dad’s life been “ripped away” by Maughan but so had hers. “From the moment I found him dead my life was destroyed. I have irreversibly been traumatised by the violent scene I discovered, the sudden loss of my dad and being involved in my dad’s murder case as a witness”.
She said she lives in “a state of fear and terror” a lot of the time. She said she couldn’t go to Balbriggan, “a place that was my hometown for 14 years without mentally and physically being retraumatised by the events of that day”.
At the close of her statement, Ms Hall told Maughan he had hurt her father “so callously” and that the fear and pain he felt “must have been terrifying for him in the last moments of his life”.
“You committed a terrible and irreversible crime that took a valuable life and you destroyed mine and my family’s lives. We have been left in heartbreak to live with the after-effects of your actions forever”.
A second victim impact statement from Siobhan Quinlan – another daughter of the deceased – was read to the court by the prosecutor. Quinlan said her sister Rebecca rang her when she entered her father’s house that day and she had heard her “high pitched screams which pierced” her heart. Quinlan said her father was such an active presence in her life and she missed him so much.
Sentencing judge Mr Justice Paul McDermott noted today that when cases come before the court and a plea has been entered, the focus “rightly falls on the victim of the crime” and the consequences for the family, which he said he had heard “so eloquently expressed” in the two victim impact statements.
He said Hall was “clearly very loved” and he expressed his deepest sympathy to the family for their loss. The judge thanked the Hall family for their two statements saying that they “were very difficult to compose and they took a lot”.
Earlier, the court heard that Maughan has 39 previous convictions, 20 of which were committed as a child and 19 as an adult. Defence counsel Philipp Rahn SC, for Maughan, said his client had anger issues and was hyperactive as a child but was doing well until he was 16 years of age.
“He started committing offences, keeping bad company and started taking drugs, which became a real problem,” he added. He said the defendant was taking alcohol and drugs at the time of this offence.
Rahn said Maughan had written a short letter to the Hall family, where he wished to express his remorse but that he appreciated “no words on paper” can make anything better. He went on to say that his client said there was no good reason for the senseless crime committed and he was not in the right frame of mind at the time but on drugs.
“He can’t explain or put into words how sorry he is and he hopes one day he will find forgiveness,” he said.
Garrett Baker SC, prosecuting, told the hearing that a postmortem was conducted by State pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers, who identified seven stab wounds on the deceased’s neck, one of which had penetrated the right internal jugular vein.
The pathologist also noted blunt force trauma injuries on the right side of the head and a fracture to the right orbital bone. Baker said the pathologist was of the view that the blunt force injuries could have been caused by the handle of a knife.
Baker said Hall lived alone but was frequently visited by his daughter Rebecca, who discovered her father’s body at his home on November 24, 2021. It was clear even to the untrained eye at the scene that “foul play” had taken place at Hall’s home the barrister said.
The prosecutor said gardaí became aware that the deceased’s daughter, Ms Rebecca Hall, had concerns about Maughan interacting with her father prior to the offence. CCTV footage in the immediate area, the court heard, had captured Maughan at the deceased’s house on three occasions on 23 November and into the next day.
Counsel said it was a forensic scientist’s view that the deceased had been assaulted and stabbed while lying on the floor in his house.
Detective Sergeant Noel Smith, of Balbriggan Garda Station, said the investigation revealed that Hall was seen out and about after the first occasion, which meant he was still alive at that point.
According to Detective Sergeant Smith, Hall was concerned that Maughan may have taken her father’s phone a few days before he was murdered. The detective agreed with Baker that Maughan and Hall had taken a taxi together a few days before he was killed.
The taxi man had told gardaí that Maughan had directed the taxi to go to various locations and the fare had reached €100.
CCTV footage, said counsel, had also captured Hall withdrawing money from an ATM and that Maughan was “standing over his shoulder when doing so”. The taxi man recalled Hall handing money over to the defendant.
Ms Hall, the court heard, had given her father a replacement phone, which was later found in Maughan’s bedroom. The SIM card for the phone was also found by gardaí in the defendant’s pocket.
When the phone was forensically examined it was established by gardaí that a factory reset of the handset had been done. The detective said a screenshot on the phone suggested a Google search had been done querying the value of “that type of phone”.
When Maughan’s house was searched, the detective said the defendant had denied he had left his house on the night of November 23. Detective Sergeant Smith said Maughan told gardaí the last time he had seen Hall was the previous Saturday. The defendant also told officers he had bought the phone from his cousin.
Speaking outside the Criminal Courts of Justice building today, Rebecca Hall said her father was “a gentle, caring and loving man, who would have done anything for anyone”.
“He loved his family. He adored his grandkids, his mother, his brothers and sisters. And he lived such a simple life. Like he didn’t harm anyone. He didn’t bother anyone,” she added.
Ms Hall said in her statement outside the court that her father’s murder was “completely senseless” with “no rhyme or reason”.
She said he was “a vulnerable old man” and she felt he was “preyed on”.
She concluded: “We got some justice today and that’s all we can get from this. Our hearts are still going to break for the rest of our lives. We’re still going to miss him. You know, we’re left with the pain, we’re left with the trauma, we’re left with the grief”.
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