10 Years For Knifing Fisherman 40 Times

Killer ‘lost control’ in row over cocaine

- Alison O'riordan

A MAN who was wearing blood-stained clothes and carrying a knife when he walked into a garda station and admitted stabbing a fisherman 40 times in a row over crack cocaine has been jailed for 10 years.

As trial judge Ms Justice Carmel Stewart expressed her condolences to Stephen “Apples” Kavanagh’s family yesterday, his sister Kim Kavanagh stood holding a framed picture of her brother saying: “That’s my brother who was hacked to death 40 times and had his throat cut by him.”

The judge went on to explain there were “a myriad of factors” the court was obliged to consider.

But Ms Kavanagh said: “My brother’s life is worth seven years. We will be appealing so don’t worry.”

Following a trial at the Central Criminal Court last December, Darren Houlden (44), of The Crescent, Meadowvale, Arklow, Co Wicklow, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of the manslaughter of Mr Kavanagh (37) on May 6, 2019.

The jury unanimously accepted the defence case that Houlden had “lost control and snapped” when he stabbed Mr Kavanagh in a “frenzied attack”.

It was the defence contention that “fear” was at “the heart of the case” and the accused was not only afraid for “his own skin” but the victim had also threatened his family, which had “set him off”.