Suspended jail term for affray linked to David Neill murder

Deiviidas Neimontas from Enniskeen, Craigavon admitted affray and was sentenced at Craigavon Crown Court today to a year in jail, suspended for two years.

Two brothers will be sentenced next Thursday, April 10, at Craigavon Crown Court on murder and manslaughter charges.

Kevin McCartney (29), has admitted the murder of Mr Neill on September 15, 2012, Daniel Paul McCartney (21), has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

All three appeared in Craigavon Crown Court today (Thursday).

The cases against the two McCartneys were put back for sentence until Thursday, April 10.

Neimontas was dealt with and sentenced to 12 months in custody, suspended for two years, for the affray charge.

A prosecution barrister said Mr Neill died from a single knife wound.

He added that all three defendants had gone to Mr Neill’s home in Parkmore and after a missile had been thrown at his door, breaking a window, the victim gave chase armed with a baseball bat. Mr Neill died from a single stab wound.

A barrister for Daniel McCartney said his client had been warned by police that night about a person who was carrying a crossbow and was looking for him.

This was the trigger, he added, for McCartney to go and get that person and it coincided with the arrival of his brother, Kevin McCartney.

The court heard that Kevin McCartney had been staying in a hostel in Belfast and had been out drinking that day before deciding to get a taxi to his mother’s home in Enniskeen.

Kevin McCartney armed himself with a knife as he thought he may have to defend himself.

His barrister said that on the ‘spur of the moment’ Kevin McCartney lashed out and inflicted the single stab would from which Mr Neill died.

A barrister for Neimontas said he played no physical role in what happened and the affray offence was at the lower end of the scale.

Sentencing Neimontas Judge Patrick Lynch said he accepted the defendant had a limited understanding of what was going on and had mixed in wrong company.

The judge added that he accepted it was a lower level of affray ‘not withstanding the tragic consequences’ of what happened.