Woman guilty of murdering ‘mentally challenged’ Dublin man

A woman has been found guilty of murdering a “mentally challenged” man who was subjected to what the prosecution described as a “protracted torturing and killing”.

Sabrina Cummins (37) with an address at Ringsend Park, Dublin 4, pleaded not guilty to murdering Thomas Horan (63) at Cambridge Court, Ringsend on January 6th, 2014.

After a period of five hours and 12 minutes deliberating, a jury of six men and six women brought in a unanimous verdict of guilty at the Central Criminal Court.

Upon hearing the verdict, Cummins held back her tears before running out of the courtroom and sobbing loudly at the holding cell.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt then thanked the 12 members of the jury for their work and the attention they had put into the case. He also told them he "thoroughly agreed" with their verdict.

“Jury service is never easy and there are difficult aspects not least the emotion that underlines these things. After five weeks work on your part, I listened to all of the evidence too, although I don’t have any vote on these things, I think your verdict is correct and amply justified,” said Mr Justice Hunt.

The judge then the court it was “abundantly clear” from the medical evidence that Mr Horan met a horrific death as well as there being the input of more than one person in this event.

“The surrounding evidence of CCTV is a good window into what was going on that night and the enormous amount of lies told,” he added.

Mr Justice Hunt thanked the jury and exempted them from jury service for the next 20 years before adding that the way Mr Horan died was “nothing only than depressing.”

“Your function is now over,” he concluded.

Both Sabrina Cummins and her younger brother Kenneth Cummins (28) will be sentenced on Friday when a victim impact statement will be read.

Kenneth Cummins pleaded not guilty to the charge initially but last week, four weeks into the trial he changed his plea to guilty.

At the time the judge told the jury that this brought its involvement in the trial of Kenneth Cummins to an end and they now had one trial to deal with, that of his sister Sabrina.