A Laois man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of nanny Aoife Phelan.
Robert Corbet from Portlaoise had pleaded not guilty to murdering Phelan but admitted her manslaughter between October 25th and November 7th, when her body was found in a barrel buried behind his home.
The trial at the Central Criminal Court heard that the couple had known each other for a few months when she told him she was pregnant with his child, with the 25-year-old claiming that Aoife later threatened to ruin his life, business and reputation if he didn't face up to his responsibilities .
According to Breaking News, he admitted that these threats had caused him to lose self-control and he caught her around the neck, struck her over the back of the head and resumed strangling her. Corbet added that "she was motionless by the time he covered her head with a plastic bag and tightened two cable ties around her neck, adding that he had done this to make sure she was dead".
A post-mortem exam showed that Ms Phelan died of asphyxia due to strangulation, with blunt force trauma a contributory factor. She was not pregnant at the time of her death.
Corbet's actions were described in court as "deliberate and calculated" and the nine men and three women reached a majority guilty verdict of ten to two, after four and a half hours of deliberations.
