The devastating cruelty endured by four-year-old Mason O’Connell-Conway, who was murdered at his home in Limerick in 2021, was laid bare during the trial of his father’s girlfriend, Tegan McGhee (32).

Doctors reported that the child’s injuries were similar to those suffered by car crash victims.

McGhee and the child’s father, John Paul O’Connell, had told paramedics that the little boy had fallen from a bunk bed in their Limerick home. He died three days later in hospital in his mother’s arms.

McGhee pleaded guilty to his murder at the trial in November and on Wednesday she was jailed for life.

The boy’s father has already been jailed for seven years after pleading guilty to neglect and impeding the prosecution of McGhee, knowing or believing she had murdered his son.

Mason’s mother Elizabeth Conway gave a powerful and heartbreaking victim impact statement in the Central Criminal Court which court reporter Eoin Reynolds describes here.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

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