Aaron Brady has been handed the mandatory life sentence for the capital murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe.
He will have to serve at least 40 years in prison. He has already instructed his lawyers to appeal his conviction.
He has also been handed a 14 year prison sentence for the robbery of €7,000 from a worker at Lordship Credit Union, Co. Louth. This sentence will run concurrently with his life sentence for capital murder.
Earlier, Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe’s wife Caroline has told the Central Criminal Court that she'll never fully recover from what happened to her husband.
Her victim impact statement was read out today at the sentence hearing of Aaron Brady, from Crossmaglen, Co. Armagh, who shot Detective Donohoe dead during an armed robbery.
Adrian Donohoe met his future wife, Caroline, at the Garda training college in Templemore. They went on to have two children: a boy and a girl.
Caroline was the one who identified her husband’s body at Lordship CU in Co. Louth on the night of January 25th 2013.
Last month, Aaron Brady was found guilty of shooting Detective Donohoe during an armed robbery. He was also convicted of robbing €7k from a credit union worker.
In her victim impact statement, Caroline said no words could adequately express the impact his death has had on her life and the lives of their children.
Passing by the scene of his death breaks her heart every time, she said before adding that life was just perfect until just “58 senseless seconds” changed everything forever.
Adrian’s parents, Hugh and Peggy, told the court they've just existed since that “awful night” when a good man came across such evil on a cold, wet night.
