The brother of a Waterford woman who was “brutally” beaten to death by her partner has said it was “beyond evil” that the defendant has taken no responsibility for the “140-plus injuries” he inflicted on her.
In an emotional victim impact statement delivered to the Central Criminal Court on Monday, the deceased’s family said 47-year-old Gillian Curran, “like many vulnerable women across Ireland, did not deserve her violent end”.
The deceased’s brother, Michael Curran, told the court their sister’s murder and the subsequent trial had a “profound effect” on the whole family. “As a family, we did not deserve to be dragged through the awful details of her death because of the cowardly decision of her killer not to plead guilty.”
He said what their sister went through in her last 24 hours constantly played on his family’s minds and they found this “extremely distressing”.
The court heard during Monday’s sentence hearing for Marcus O’Neill (36), who was sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment having been found guilty of murder last July, that the deceased suffered from chronic alcohol addiction.
O’Neill had told gardaí at the scene that his girlfriend had fallen multiple times from intoxication. However, there was evidence O’Neill had moved her body and changed her clothing. The nature of the injuries she suffered were so severe they were akin to those experienced in a serious road traffic collision.
Gillian Curran, who was 47 and originally from Sweetbriar in Tramore, was found unresponsive at O’Neill’s house on the morning of January 25th, 2025, and pronounced dead a short time later.
O’Neill had denied murdering her at his home on O’Brien Street in Waterford city. The court heard on Monday that Gillian Curran, who was in a relationship with O’Neill, did not permanently reside there but had regularly stayed at his property.
On July 30th last, a jury of five men and seven women found O’Neill guilty of murdering Gillian Curran by a majority verdict of 10-2.
Defence counsel Roisin Lacey told the court on Monday that her client did not accept the jury’s verdict and it would be wrong of her not to indicate that to the court.
Handing down the mandatory term of life imprisonment for murder, Judge Caroline Biggs thanked the Curran family for giving her an insight into the type of person their sister was.
“The evidence I received today is entirely consistent with [that] heard in the trial from her many work colleagues, who held her in such high esteem and who discussed her in the same terms as her family; clever, capable, kind and a funny person, who was undoubtedly very trusting and sadly very vulnerable”.
The judge said the defendant had brutally beaten his partner to death, that she had sustained 143 injuries over the course of that night and early morning and that those injuries had included lacerations to her chin, tears to her kidney and internal injuries to her stomach. She had suffered “what was described by the pathologist as brain damage, thereby causing her body to stop functioning leading to her death”.
She said the pathologist had also given evidence of strangulation marks on the neck area and that the deceased’s body was almost entirely covered in bruises.
Micheal Curran described his sister as an “intelligent, loving, kind and vivacious woman” in the family’s victim impact statement.
“Trying to blame Gillian for his actions resulting in her horrible death was doubly cruel. His complete lack of remorse and taking no responsibility for the 140-plus injuries he inflicted on her is beyond evil. It was incredibly difficult attending court every day and seeing first hand his complete indifference”.