{"id":376965,"date":"2026-03-10T03:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/376965\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T03:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T03:28:12","slug":"man-who-meted-out-a-volley-of-violence-on-his-defenceless-friend-found-guilty-of-murder-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/376965\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who meted out a \u2018volley of violence\u2019 on his defenceless friend found guilty of murder \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A scaffolder who meted out a \u201cvolley of violence\u201d on a defenceless \u201cdrunken bowsie\u201d in response to his mother being insulted with lewd requests for sex has been found guilty of murder by a Central Criminal Court<\/a> jury.<\/p>\n

The panel of eight men and four women took six hours and 54 minutes over three days to reject the defence case by a majority verdict of 10 to two, finding that this was not an unlawful killing but a case of murder.<\/p>\n

It was the State\u2019s case that Juris Kokenbergs died after his head was \u201cstomped\u201d on and blows \u201crained down on him\u201d during an assault by his friend Tomas Cypas.<\/p>\n

In his closing speech, Conor Devally, prosecuting, said that Cypas was under no threat and had the intent to at least cause serious injury to Kokenbergs.<\/p>\n

Counsel said Cypas had inflicted \u201ca battering\u201d and an \u201cappalling attack\u201d with huge violence on his friend after Kokenbergs made \u201cthe utterances of a very drunk man\u201d. <\/p>\n

The jurors had the option of returning three verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Lithuanian national Cypas, namely: guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty.<\/p>\n

The jurors were told by the trial judge that they could find Cypas not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of lack of intention to kill or cause serious injury or on the grounds of self-defence, provocation or intoxication.<\/p>\n

Cypas (35), with an address at Foxborough Road, Lucan, Co Dublin, had pleaded not guilty to murdering Latvian national Kokenbergs (49) at Old Bridge Park, Lucan, Co Dublin, on October 28th, 2024.<\/p>\n

The defendant told garda\u00ed in his interviews that he visited his mother at Old Bridge Park on October 26th to celebrate her birthday and have \u201csome drinks\u201d. Cypas said that Kokenbergs was already \u201cpretty drunk\u201d when he arrived at the house and that he wouldn\u2019t have invited his friend if he knew he was in that state.<\/p>\n

Cypas described his friend as being \u201cso drunk\u201d that \u201che didn\u2019t seem to know who he was talking to … he had been drinking for two weeks straight\u201d.<\/p>\n

The defendant said that there was an argument between him and Kokenbergs, adding: \u201cIt started over him [the deceased] telling my mam to go up and have sex with him. He said it three times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cypas said Kokenbergs \u201ccame at\u201d him first and had \u201cstarted the punches\u201d, so he acted in self-defence.<\/p>\n

Cypas said he hit the deceased up to eight times in the face and didn\u2019t \u201cmean to hurt him or anything\u201d. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it was that bad, I didn\u2019t consider he would die of his injuries. I didn\u2019t plan this, he is my friend, it happened,\u201d the defendant told detectives.<\/p>\n

He denied stamping on Kokenbergs\u2019s head during the assault.<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination by the defence, a pathologist told the jurors that punching alone could have caused the extensive damage she found to the deceased\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n

Expert witness Dr Heidi Okkers testified that while \u201cdefinitely\u201d some sort of contact had been made from a shoe to the deceased\u2019s scalp, she could not determine if it was significant.<\/p>\n

The trial heard evidence that three areas of blood-staining with DNA matching that of Kokenbergs were found on the defendant\u2019s runner. The jury also heard there was \u201cweak support\u201d for the position that Cypas\u2019s footwear had made a pattern on the deceased\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

Following Monday\u2019s majority verdict, Judge Paul McDermott thanked the jury for their service, which he said required careful attention to detail. He exempted them from jury duty for the next five years.<\/p>\n

The judge will impose the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment to Cypas on March 23rd and remanded the defendant in custody until that date.<\/p>\n

On that date, the Kokenbergs family will have an opportunity to make a statement to the court about the impact Juris\u2019s death has had on their lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A scaffolder who meted out a \u201cvolley of violence\u201d on a defenceless \u201cdrunken bowsie\u201d in response to his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,65264,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,7253,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-376965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-lithuania","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116202760079574240","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}