John Mongan Killers Sentenced

Three men convicted of killing a prominent member of the North's travelling community have had heavy sentences handed down.

Mr Justice Treacy fixed the minimum terms that the defendants must serve in full for the murder of John Mongan before they are eligible to be considered for release as 20 years for Christopher Patrick Stokes and 22 years for Edward Gabriel Stokes. Martin Stokes must serve at least 16 years imprisonment.

At Belfast Crown Court, he set the minimum terms of imprisonment to be served by the three men found guilty of the murder of John Mongan.

The court heard that in the early hours of 7 February 2008 the defendants forced their way into the home of Julia and John Mongan in Fallswater Street, Belfast.

They attacked John Mongan in front of his wife who was due to go into hospital that morning to give birth.

John Mongan sustained extensive multiple injuries which resulted in him bleeding to death.

The pathologist told the court that some of the injuries were inflicted with a knife while others may have been caused by a bladed weapon such as a machete, hatchet or axe. As the defendants left the house, Edward Gabriel Stokes attacked Julia Mongan striking her on the head and shoulder. All three were then seen to damage John Mongan's jeep.

Mr Justice Treacy referred to the guidance for judges sentencing persons guilty of murder.

He said the guidance operates to ensure that those persons who are similarly culpable are comparably treated whoever sentences them and wherever they are sentenced.

The guidance includes starting points to be adopted by the sentencing judge and details the aggravating and mitigating factors which relate to either the offence or the offender in a particular case that would make it appropriate for the judge to vary the starting point upwards or downwards.

The judge said that as far as the offence was concerned the aggravating factors were that it was planned and the defendants armed themselves in advance. There were no mitigating factors.

The judge told the defendants: "For whatever reason you took the law into your own hands that night setting out to slay John Mongan.

"In this you succeeded and in so doing robbed Julia Mongan of her husband and their three children of their father.

"You (and perhaps others) may have foolishly thought or been encouraged to think that you were above the law and beyond its reach. But you were not," he concluded.

(BMcC/GK)