The family of a murdered woman want her killer to face prosecution after he was moved back to a high-security prison on suspicion of sending threatening texts from behind bars.
Evil Raymond Donovan - who beat and strangled his former girlfriend Ann Walsh in 2005 - was transferred from Shelton Abbey open prison back to Castlerea over the alleged offence after claims of him being caught with a phone.
Ann’s brother Stephen has called for a meeting with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee to find out what is happening over his latest incident, which follows other allegations of being caught with contraband.
And Stephen also blasted the prison system for leaving victims’ families behind.
He told the Irish Mirror: “You’re left in the dark in every way. No one is informing you about anything. You have to write off to them every two years to tell them why a person should be kept there which they know that. The system is all wrong.
“He should be getting more time onto his sentence. What’s he going to be like when he actually does get out?”
Stephen added: “I want to talk to the Minister for Justice. There’s a lot of questions."
Ann was aged just 23 when she was strangled by her ex Donovan in the grounds of the local church in Kilrush, Co Clare. It was only after she was killed that her relatives learned how Donovan had abused her through their previous relationship, beating her and even forcing her head down a toilet.
Donovan was sentenced to life over the murder in 2006 but having served 17 years, the Walsh family fear he will be released in the coming years. But Stephen insists that murderers should serve at least 20 years before they come up for parole which would give families a break from the constant fight of writing to authorities in a bid to stop them getting out.
He told us: “It tore us all apart. Mentally and physically. And the hardest thing is we are fighting day in and day out to keep someone in jail for something so serious. We have to put it in writing as to why he wants to stay there. We have to bring every detail back up from start to finish.”
He added: “He killed her at the back of the church which is only a couple hundred yards from our house. A couple of hundred yards from the back of our house is where she is buried. We can’t dodge it, not that we want to. I never want her to be forgotten but the likes of him deserves to pay.”
Stephen also told how to this day, Donovan has never shown an “inch” of remorse over the brutal killing of Ann.
He said: “He’ll never change. He’s the lowest of the low. He’s not a man at all.”
The murder of Ann Walsh is the focus of a TG4 documentary Maru Inar Measc which will air on Wednesday at 9.30pm.
Get breaking news to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter
