Man who murdered Pat Ward given nine years for slashing incident

THE MAN who murdered Pat Ward in Clogher six years ago was today sentenced for a knife attack incident in 2018.

Niall Cox (29), from McCrea Park, Crossowen, Clogher, was sentenced for the assault at Dungannon Crown Court.

He was first charged with the offence of wounding with intent to commit serious injury in 2019, but the case was delayed due to the ongoing murder investigation.

The case surrounded an incident on September 18, 2018, at an Enniskillen hotel, where police were alerted to a disturbance on the hotel grounds.

CCTV, footage showed Cox and the victim on a grass area of the carpark involved in an altercation.

The victim fell to the floor with Cox on top of him as the assault continued. The injured man was then set free and was lifted by his partner, who brought him to the hospital.

Following the attack, the victim was left with a 10cm laceration across his shoulder which was ‘exposed to the muscle’. A Stanley knife was found at the scene, but could not be linked to the assault. However, blood found on Cox’s cuff matched the blood of the injured man.

The following day Cox was interviewed and provided ‘no useful comments’, but he later pleaded guilty to the offence.

Cox said he had been on a ‘two day drink-and-drug binge’, which he blamed as the basis for his actions that evening.

The court was reminded that in the following year Cox and his partner, Karen McDonald (37), murdered Pat Ward at their home address in Clogher.

They used a ‘oblong blunt object’ to inflict multiple injuries on Mr Ward, later removing his body and leaving it on the street to be found the next morning by a member of the public.

Cox  was given a life sentence for Mr Ward’s murder, with a starting point of 20 years, after he pleaded guilty to murder, while McDonald was sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter.

Speaking today about the 2018 GBH attack, His Honour Judge Sherrard said Cox had a ‘violent record’ and was assessed as a ‘high likelihood’ of reoffending with a ‘significant risk of serious harm’.

He said that while the wounding was on the ‘lower end’, it was aggravated with Cox’s background of offending.

Cox was sentenced to nine years imprisonment for the offence.