Five members of Ashling Murphy killer's family jailed for trying to cover up murder

Eoin Reynolds

Five members of Jozef Puska's family, who withheld or destroyed evidence of the murder of Ashling Murphy, have been jailed by a judge at the Central Criminal Court.

Puska's brothers, Marek (36) and Lubomir (37), have been sentenced to 30 months each in prison.

Lubomir's wife, Viera Gaziova (40), was sentenced to 30 months, and Marek's wife, Jozefina, to 27 months, with the last six months of both sentences suspended.

Jozef Puska's partner and the mother of his children, Lucia Istokova (36), will serve a 26-month sentence, again with the last six months suspended.

Ms Justice Caroline Biggs said she suspended the final six months for each of the women after considering psychological reports regarding the roles of women in Roma society.

Those reports, she said, indicate that women in Roma society are "subordinate and subservient to men" and that they are "somehow less".

Ms Justice Biggs said she had to take account of the reports, which were based on "extensive research and data" and engagement with the book of evidence and the accused.

Before sentencing, Ashling Murphy's sister Amy Murphy told the court of the family's anger at the "injustice of it all" and the "staggering" public cost to pay for legal teams that could have been directed to "vital and underfunded services across Ireland".

Prior to a jury being sworn to hear the trial, there were 12 days of pre-trial hearings during which each of the accused had the benefit of a senior and junior counsel.

During the course of the trial, which ran over a four-week period, a further three days were taken up with legal arguments and rulings.

Amy Murphy said her family felt "gaslit" when barristers for each of the accused described their clients as holding family values and wanting to educate their children and create a better life for them.

"How dare they speak those words?" she said. "Words they [the defendants] clearly don't live by and that their actions completely contradict."

"Our parents worked incredibly hard to provide for us, to ensure we were educated and to instil in us a strong work ethic, integrity and moral responsibility.

"To sit there and hear those values twisted and used in defence of people who have demonstrated none of those qualities was infuriating. It felt deeply insulting to Ashling, to our parents and to everything decent families stand for."

Ms Murphy said the defendants made "deliberate choices" to withhold information or destroy evidence. She added: "They each chose silent complicity, proving themselves to be unreliable and untrustworthy when truth and courage were most needed."

Ms Murphy said the thought of returning to court filled her with dread, but she felt it was essential that her sister be represented and that "our family's voice is finally heard before any decision is made regarding the future of these defendants".

She said the family's perspective has rarely been heard throughout the court process and they have had few opportunities to convey the "true depth of our pain and loss".

Jozef Puska (35) murdered Ms Murphy (23) on January 12th, 2022, by repeatedly stabbing her in the neck after attacking her while she exercised along the canal towpath outside Tullamore, Co Offaly.

He was convicted in 2023 of her murder and is serving a life sentence. He will first be eligible to apply for parole after he has spent 12 years in custody.

Ashling and Amy's father, Ray Murphy, wrote a statement which was read by Garda Alan Burke. Mr Murphy told the court that when Ashling was three years old, Santa brought her a pink plastic fiddle.

It played nursery rhymes and from this, her love of the fiddle grew, he said.

He added: "Ashling always told me that she intended to give that toy fiddle she cherished so much as a child to her own children one day, so they too could play with it and find a love of music. But that will never happen now.

"It will forever remain in her bedroom, frozen in time and unplayed by children Ashling can never have."

Mr Murphy said the defendants could have spared the family the 'horror' of a trial if they had "simply done the right thing and for once thought of others instead of themselves".

He added: "We may even have even been spared the trauma of a murder trial, of having to endure the detailed horrors of what was inflicted upon our Ashling if any one of these five people had come forward with what they knew in January 2022.

"Instead, they closed ranks and decided to protect the animal they call their husband and brother."

Ashling, he said, "represents the best of everything Ireland is... beauty, kindness, compassion, and talent, love and innocence. This will forever be her legacy. Ireland is a better place because she was here."

Mr Murphy asked the Puska family to consider their legacy. He said they take but give nothing and when they knew, "without question" that Jozef Puska had murdered Ashling "in the most horrific way imaginable, they did everything possible to conceal what they knew and to destroy vital evidence."

Had they succeeded, he added: "My family would be left without justice and closure for the rest of our lives while your husband and brother would be left free to roam the streets of Ireland to possibly do this all over again to another innocent family."

Jail terms

Imposing the jail terms on Wednesday, Ms Justice Biggs said she is required under the Constitution to impose a proportionate sentence that takes into account the harm done, the culpability of the defendants but also mitigating factors in their favour.

She noted that the offending was not in the highest category, given that Jozef Puska was identified as a suspect, prosecuted and convicted.

However, she further noted that each accused had acted with the knowledge that Puska had killed Ashling Murphy or committed a similar type offence.

The evidence suggests, she said, that Marek, Lubomir and Lucia made a collective decision to withhold information. "It is far too much of a coincidence that so much information was left out in their early interactions with gardaí and then disclosed on a piecemeal basis thereafter."

The judge said she agreed with the Murphy family that the Puskas "closed ranks".

While their decision did not prevent Jozef Puska's prosecution, it did waste garda resources and remove potentially valuable evidence.

The decision to burn the clothes Puska wore when he murdered Ashling deprived the investigation of potential forensic evidence given the likelihood that they were stained with Ashling's blood.

The maximum sentence for withholding information is five years, the judge said, while for destroying evidence the maximum is ten years.

The offences were not carried out for personal gain or on behalf of a criminal organisation, but arose out of a desire to protect a family member, she said. In mitigation, she considered apologies made by each defendant and that their own lives were upturned by the actions of Jozef Puska.

However, the judge also expressed concern that probation reports for each of the accused suggested a "lack of accountability". The accounts given to probation officers, she said, were contradicted by the evidence and previous statements.

The most significant mitigation, she said, was that they all care for their children and it is unusual to have both parents before the court.

She sentenced the two men to 30 months each, Viera to 30 months, Lucia to 26 months and Jozefina to 27 months. She suspended the final six months for each of the women after considering psychological reports regarding the roles of women in Roma society.

Those reports, she said, indicate that women in Roma society are "subordinate and subservient to men" and that they are "somehow less".

Ms Justice Biggs said any "right-minded member of Irish society" would find such views "reprehensible and antiquated".

But she said she had to take account of the reports which were based on extensive research and data and engagement with the book of evidence and the accused.

Women in Roma culture, she said, have subordinate roles, limited power and are isolated from the wider community. It appeared on the evidence that Josefina and Viera did not question the instruction to burn the clothes. "They were told what to do and they did it," the judge said.

Had they had greater exposure to a wider community and education, the judge suggested they might have challenged what they were told.

Instead, they received limited education, married in their late teens and became mothers soon afterwards. They did not work outside the home and had no exposure to other people beyond their husbands' friends and family.

Ms Justice Biggs said she didn't believe it would be right to ignore the psychological report, given that the women "were told what to do and they did it and that is the culture in which they were raised".

Ms Justice Biggs finished by telling the Murphy family that she is "acutely aware of how powerless I am and the criminal justice system is to do anything to ease your pain and suffering."

She thanked them for taking part in and respecting the legal process. She apologised for the additional pain and suffering endured due to the system.

On June 17th this year, a jury accepted the prosecution’s case that Lubomir Jnr and Marek misled gardaí by failing to disclose vital information when they gave witness statements, while their wives - Gaziova and Grundzova - burned Jozef's clothes to impede his arrest or prosecution.

All four had pleaded not (NOT) guilty to all charges.

Jozef Puska's partner and mother of his children, Lucia Istokova (36), pleaded guilty to withholding information in May this year before the commencement of the trial.

All family members were living with Jozef Puska and 14 children at Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly when the offences occurred in January 2022.