Murderer receives lower sentence

Noel Williamson, 30, was found on a riverside path

A County Kerry man has been given a life sentence for the murder of a man in County Tyrone.

Matthew O'Donnell had denied killing 30-year-old Noel Williamson in Caledon in October 2004.

Mr Williamson's badly beaten body was found by a man out walking his dog beside the River Blackwater.

O'Donnell will serve at least 12 years after a judge reduced the starting point of 15 years to take account of his "limited intellectual capacity".

Outside the court in Belfast, Mr Williamson's sister Sandra said her family was "glad the case has now come to an end and we can now move on, although it will be hard".

Mr Williamson, from Killylea, County Armagh, was stabbed five times in the right lower face and neck and also suffered "multiple blows of considerable force" to his head, neck and shoulders caused by kicking or stamping.

O'Donnell, of no fixed address, is the second man to be convicted of the killing.

Last year, 20-year-old Samuel Houston from Churchill Cottages in Caledon was jailed for eight years for the manslaughter of Mr Williamson.

It was suggested in court that the motive for Mr Williamson's murder could be traced back to a beating Houston had received five weeks earlier in Armagh when Mr Williamson had not come to his aid.

Mr Justice Hart said: "The only mitigating factor is that O'Donnell suffers from a mental disability which I am satisfied, lowered the degree of his criminal responsibility for the killing."