Table will always be set for five in Murphy home says Ashling's sister

THE table will always be set for five in the Murphy household, Ashling Murphy's sister Amy told the sentencing hearing this morning.

In one of three emotionally charged victim impact statements as Ashling's killer Jozef Puska received the mandatory life sentence, Amy said the job herself, her murdered sister and their brother Cathal always had to do at home as kids was to set the table for five for dinner.

“We as a family will continue to set the table for five,” she declared, as her brother and her parents Ray and Kathleen listened in the courtroom.

Speaking of how Ashling had been taken away from the family for ever, she said that unlike her killer, for the family there would be no parole, no emails or no visits.

She said she would no longer think about Puska but instead her thoughts would be with Ashling.

Turning in the witness box to address Puska directly in the dock, Amy Murphy told the packed courtroom: “He shall not live rent free in the back of my mind.”

She spoke of how the kitchen table was not just a place where the family ate but was also where she and Ashling played music, placing their instrument boxes underneath.

“Her pink fiddle case now lies at home in dust.”

The first victim impact statement was made by Ryan Casey, Ashling's boyfriend, who outlined how they first met at a rugby club disco when they were both 15 in September 2013.

He sent her a text the following day and in 2014 he met Ashling's family for the first time, describing them as the best family you could ever meet.

Ryan broke down as he revealed a watch which had had given Ashling as a present in December 2018 was now being worn by her mother Kathleen.

He said he and Ashling were soulmates who helped each other through the Leaving Certificate and college and said of the few years after 2018: “It was quite simply heaven on earth.”

They were going to move in together in Galway where he was going to work and then live in Dubai for a couple of years.

“Ashling knew me better than I knew myself. She literally could read me like a book.”

He described them both as “planners” and they had picked out a site, hoped to build a house and start a family of “hurlers of camogie players or even better, musicians”.

Ryan said Puska was insignificant, the lowest of the low and the last 22 months had been the toughest of his life.

He said he now hated knives, even when he needed to use one to eat.

“I constantly find myself missing her presence.”

He last saw her on January 10, 2022 at his house when she dropping off some shopping.

His family were isolating at home and he and Ashling were due to fly to Manchester on January 21 and did not want to jeopardise the trip.

They spent three to four seconds looking into each others eyes because they could not hug or kiss and he now asked himself every day why he did not give her a hug.

He said the “horrific, senseless, and completely evil taking of Ashling's life is our life sentence”, a sentence in which there is no parole.

“She was still so young, she had so much more life and love to give; she was taken from us far too soon.”

He described Puska as an “absolute indescribable waste of life” should be sentenced to the absolute maximum number of years possible.

It sickened him “to the core” that someone could come to Ireland, be fully supported with social housing, social welfare, and free medical care for over 10 years, never hold down a legitimate job and never once contribute to society in any way shape or form and commit such a “horrendous, evil act of inconceivable violence on such a beautiful, loving and talented person who in fact, worked for the State, educating the next generation and represented everything that is good about Irish society.”

He said he felt Ireland is no longer the country that Ashling and he grew up in and had officially lost its innocence when a crime of this magnitude can be perpetrated in broad daylight.

“This country needs to wake up, this time things have got to change.”

He said we have to “start putting the safety of not only Irish people but everybody in this country who works hard, pays taxes, raises families and overall contributes to society, first”.

He concluded by turning to Puska and saying: “You will never, ever harm or touch another woman ever again and when your day of reckoning comes, may you be in hell a whole half hour before God even knows you're dead.”

A victim impact statement on behalf of Kathleen Murphy was read by Sergeant Lucy McLoughlin.

Ashling's mother spoke of how much she misses her daughter, saying their house was alive with fiddle music every night and they were always going to camogie matches and concerts.

A week before her murder, Ashling had treated her parents to a trip to the Guinness Storehouse.

The statement said: “Ashling and I never had a row. She was too nice.”

Remembering the day of the murder, Kathleen said Ashling told her she would go for a job on the canal line after work.

She said she begged her not to do so and Ashling replied: “Ah Mam, I'm 23 years old.” She hugged her mother and told her she loved her.

The mandatory life sentence was imposed by Mr Justice Tony Hunt on the 33-year-old who had denied the murder of Ashling Murphy on the bank of the Grand Canal at Cappincur, Tullamore on January 12 last year.

Mr Justice Hunt explained that he could only impose a life sentence and could not specify a term.

But he added: “If I had the power to set a term it would be a very long one.”

Indeed, it would be a whole of life sentence because the murder Puska had committed was “so far up the scale of gravity”.

The judge said. “I don't have that power.”

An 18-day trial at the Central Criminal Court had heard that Puska, a father of five who was living at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, stabbed the 23-year-old teacher 11 times in the neck.

His claim that both he and Ashling had been attacked by a man in a mask, and that he had then gone to help the woman before fleeing, was dismissed as nonsense by Mr Justice Hunt.