Derry man jailed for 'preventing the lawful burial' of his father's body

A fifty-six year old man who admitted preventing the lawful burial of his eighty-six year old father who died in his family home in July 2024, has been jailed for three years at Derry Crown Court.

John Garrett O'Sullivan pleaded guilty to preventing the lawful burial of his father, retired orthodontist Noel O'Sullivan, between July 1 and July 18, 2024. 

O'Sullivan, who lived in a garage in the grounds of the family home at Culmore Road in Derry, wrapped his father's body in a duvet and in a clear plastic tarpaulin sheet. He also placed a nappy on his dead father's head and hands and wrapped him in drynite bedding and placed a wet wipe cloth into his father's mouth. 

He then placed the upper part of his father's body into a fridge and surrounded the rest of the intact body with the open door of a second fridge.

His body was found by police officers who forced entry into the family home following concerns for her father's safety expressed by his daughter Noelle-Anne O'Sullivan.

Several hours after his father's body was found O'Sullivan was stopped by police officers as he walked near his family home. In a recorded interview he told the police his father had developed symptoms of raving and paralysis, that he had then recovered but died a few days later.

"He described his father as being very aggressive, he was on the floor ranting and raving, having difficulties breathing and at times unable to move", a prosecutor told Judge Roseanne McCormick KC.

"The defendant stated he was trying to help him but as his father was telling him to get lost he left the room and went to bed. The defendant spoke about trying to feed him and tried to get him to drink a bit on the Saturday evening. 

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"The defendant states he returned to the living room in late afternoon the next day, July 7, where he located his father and believed he was dead as he was pale and stiff", the barrister said.

The prosecutor said the defendant felt there was no need to call a GP as his father was dead and that after the death O'Sullivan started researching what the procedure was in place in the event of a sudden death. 

That research included contacting staff at the parochial house in Buncrana, Co. Donegal and staff at his GP Practice.

The barrister said after his arrest O'Sullivan spoke to a nurse while in police custody.

"He informed the nurse his father had died on July 8th following a collapse episode. He stated that he wanted to keep  his father in the house to preserve his privacy and dignity and he felt if he rang for an ambulance his father would have been put into a fridge in Atnagelvin Hospital. He decided to preserve his father's body using two fridges.

"He told the nurse he would exercise his father's limbs as he had heard from other people that undertakers have to break their bones to get them into the coffin", he said.

The prosecutor said the deceased was identified using DNA samples from his toothbrush. Following his arrest the defendant was interviewed four times and on each occasion he replied no comment.

"The defendant purchased the tarpaulin on July 1 and July 3 and the drynite bed mats on July 8. Therefore when the defendant was going about his daily life he chose not to and failed to alert the police or others to the fact of his father's death and the location of the body despite going about his daily routine", the barrister added.

Defence solicitor Gareth McFadden said it was a tragic and distressing case and that O'Sullivan acknowledged that a custodial sentence was inevitable.

"It was not a crime committed with the intention of preventing an investigation into the cause of death. It did not involve the deliberate obstruction of the course of justice. He has now been completely isolated from the other members of his family and has been assessed by the probation service as posing a medium risk of re-offending", he said.

Mr. McFadden said O'Sullivan, who had been in custody since his arrest in July 2024, had served the equivalent of a three year determinate sentence and was continuing to engage with the community mental health team.

Jailng O'Sullivan for three years Judge McCormick said by his actions after his father's death "he prioritised his own to do list by not alerting anyone about his father's death. He pursued his own agenda after his father's death".

She said when two social workers called at the family home on July 11 O'Sullivan refused them access "when his father was dead inside" and said he had treated his father's body with indignity and degradation.

By  his egocentric actions, she said, he had denied the family the process of a wake and left them with a lot of unanswered questions about their father's last days. That, she said, caused significant psychological harm and injury to his two sisters.

Judge McCormick said O'Sullivan's actions were prompted by self motivation and that he had prioritised his own needs over the needs of other family members. She said she took into consideration that O'Sullivan had suffered significant mental health issues following his PhD graduation from a university in Dublin in 1997 but added that his behaviour was highly culpable.