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From the
https://metro.co.uk Georgia Diebelius, Friday 3 Mar 2017.
Brothers face jail for killing man ‘who said they were gay’
Two brothers are facing prison after beating a man to death to
‘teach him a lesson’ for using a ‘gay slur’.
James and Peter Weeks attacked Ian O’Mahoney and Barry Tatan
outside the White Hart pub in Eltham, south-east London, on August
28 last year.
 
The brothers targeted Mr Tatan, 48, after he drunkenly insulted
them in another pub, The "Draughts," earlier that evening.
They later turned the attack onto Mr O’Mahoney, 49, when he
stepped in to help.
One of the brothers grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him to
the floor – cracking his head on the pavement.
Following an Old Bailey trial, a jury took nine hours to find
both men guilty of manslaughter by a majority of 10 to two. James
Weeks was also found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily
harm, a charge his brother had admitted.
Prosecutor Tom Kark QC told jurors: ‘When Ian O’Mahoney tried to
help his mate Barry, who was getting a beating from one of the
brothers, the other Weeks brother grabbed him by the shoulders and,
swinging him around, threw him to the floor. ‘So forceful was that
swing that it literally lifted Ian’s feet off the ground and his
head hit the hard pavement with a resounding thud which was audible
to those nearby.
‘(Mr Tatan) had suggested, apparently, that James Weeks, who
neither man knew, was gay. That caused the Weeks brothers to decide
to teach him a lesson. ‘Neither Barry nor Ian put up a fight.
Neither was being aggressive and the Weeks brothers had no cause to
launch their attack other than the apparent provocation of the words
of Barry Tatan earlier in the evening.’
Although able to stagger back to the home he and Mr Tatan shared,
Mr O’Mahoney was fatally wounded as the blow had caused a bleed on
his brain, Mr Kark told the court. He was alive the next morning
when Mr Tatan found him in the hallway.
But he did not know how gravely injured his friend was, so when
his sons Barry and Jordan arrived, they left him, unconscious and
naked in the hallway, while they went to a pub. By the time he
returned later that morning, Mr O’Mahoney had died from a brain
haemorrhage.
Peter Weeks, 29, of no fixed abode, and James Weeks, 27, of
Crayford near Dartford, south-east London, had denied manslaughter.
But Mr Kark said: ‘They were jointly responsible for his death by
reason of their unlawful and cowardly assault, provoked as it was by
a stupid comment Barry had made.’ Remanding the brothers into
custody, Judge John Bevan acknowledged the ‘devastating effect’ on
the family of the victim who was ‘completely harmless’ and was just
‘getting on his feet’ before his death.
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