THE mother of murdered Limerick national champion boxer Kevin Sheehy has called on Gardaí to renew efforts to bring two people who are suspected of aiding and abetting her son’s killer to justice.
Tracey Tully, the late champion boxer’s mother, said she would not rest until all persons involved in her son’s killing were jailed.
Ms Tully’s call came in the wake of her son’s convicted murderer, Logan Jackson, being sentenced to 22 years in a jail in his native England for her son’s killing this week.
The final sentence was handed down five years on from Sheehy’s murder on July 1, 2019.
Jackson, who was initially sentenced to life in prison in Ireland, was eventually transferred out of Limerick Prison to his native UK, despite Ms Tully taking a legal case against the Minister for Justice in an effort to keep Jackson in jail on Irish soil.
It was the grieving mother’s belief that her son’s killer should serve his sentence in the country where he took her son’s life.
However, speaking to the Limerick Post this Wednesday, Ms Tully said she was “over the moon” that Jackson must now, by order of the Sheriff’s Court in his native Coventry, serve at least 19 years and 192 days in prison before he can apply for parole.
“He would have got around 17 years here in Ireland. Even though it will never bring my son back, I am happy knowing I will never have to hear about him for a long time,” Ms Tully said.
“I had been living in constant fear of getting a phone call to say that he (Jackson) had got a lesser sentence (in the UK). That would have killed me.”
Jackson repeatedly drove over Kevin Sheehy in a vicious and unprovoked attack after the champion Irish boxer and Olympic hopeful was on his way home after celebrating Limerick’s Munster Hurling Final win over Tipperary in 2019.
34-year-old Jackson, of Longford Road, Coventry, was found guilty by a unanimous jury verdict at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin in December 2021 of murdering Mr Sheehy (20) at Hyde Road, Limerick, in the early hours of July 1, 2019.
The court heard Mr Sheehy, who had no links to crime and was a sporting hero in his community, fought to get up off the ground after he was initially struck by a UK-registered Mitsubishi Shogun jeep being driven by Jackson, who ran over Mr Sheehy two further times at speed.
The court heard Jackson used the vehicle as a murder weapon on the five-time national boxing champion from Ash Avenue, John Carew Park, and Kennedy Park.
Jackson had told a “tapestry of lies” about how he had felt under threat at a house party earlier on the night, Dean Kelly, prosecuting counsel, told the jury.
Ms Tully said she and her family, including Kevin’s partner who was pregnant with their first daughter at the time he died, have not been able to grieve properly due to the nature of his sudden and shocking death and the prolonged legal battle for justice they continue to fight.
Sharing a photograph of her beloved son taken just hours before he was murdered, jubilant over Limerick’s Munster championship success, Ms Tully said: “He was so happy on the day, he met so many people that day when Limerick won the Munster Hurling final, and he was hugging them all.”
Ms Tully said she was unhappy with the pace of the Garda investigation into allegations that others had assisted Jackson.
She called on Gardaí to renew their efforts to arrest two people suspected of helping Jackson.
“I am absolutely at the end of my tether, I am trying to heal, but you can’t heal from something you can’t understand,” Ms Tully said.
She said Jackson’s sentence being imposed the UK this week, on the fifth anniversary of Kevin Sheehy’s killing, was “a nice result for us, it was bittersweet”.
“We never got time to grieve Kevin or celebrate his wonderful life, and a friend of his sent recently me a photo of them all walking home from the Munster final together, laughing and happy.
“I couldn’t stop crying when I saw the photo, it is a bittersweet photo of your child five years on that you have never seen before.”
Gardaí were contacted for comment about the investigation into Kevin Sheehy’s death, but did not responded by the time of going to print.
