LAST UPDATE | 16 May

A JURY HAS convicted a 39-year-old man of murder, rejecting his claim that he was provoked and defending himself from an attack by his ailing 58-year-old mother, whom he strangled and smothered to death in her own home.

Nigel Canavan (39) claimed that stab wounds to each of Angela Canavan’s thighs, one of which tracked to 13.5cm in depth, were self-inflicted by his mother, who the trial heard had a “glittering career” as a psychotherapist before she fell into the grip of alcoholism.

Canavan claimed that he had acted in self-defence when his mother, who had a brain injury from a fall four years before her death, attacked him by swinging her open hands at him and trying to kick him.

Taking the stand at his Central Criminal Court trial, Canavan further accused his mother of deliberately provoking him by calling him the “worst son in the world” and saying she wished she had never had him during a heated argument.

The jury of ten women and two men spent over five hours considering their verdict before rejecting Canavan’s self-defence claim.

They also rejected the suggestion that his mother’s alleged insults so provoked him that he could be found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.

A pathologist found that besides being strangled and smothered, Angela Canavan had suffered a laceration to the top of her head, bruises to her face, body, arms and legs and three broken ribs.

Some injuries indicated she tried to defend herself from an attack, and bruises to her chest suggested she had been manhandled before her death.

Canavan, with an address at Erris Gardens, Crossmolina, Co Mayo, had pleaded not guilty to his mother’s murder at her home in St John’s Terrace, Co Sligo on 1 May 2023.

He has been on bail throughout his trial and did not react when the registrar revealed the jury’s verdict. His father, who has been by his son’s side throughout the trial, broke down in tears.

Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo remanded Canavan in custody and will sentence him to the mandatory term of life imprisonment at a sentencing hearing on 3 June, when Angela Canavan’s other son, Keith Canavan, will make a statement to the court.

The trial

The trial heard that in February 2023, Canavan crashed his car outside the family home while drunk before confronting the driver of the other vehicle while holding a hurl.

He pleaded guilty to drunk driving and assault arising from that incident.

His then-wife, Claire Conroy, said she wanted a separation so she could get her life “back to normal”. In April that year, he moved to his father’s home in Crossmolina and on the May Bank Holiday weekend, Canavan stayed with his mother in Sligo.

Angela Canavan was a respected therapist and psychologist who had developed difficulties with alcohol.

In 2019, she fell down the stairs of her home and suffered a brain injury that affected her mobility. She remained independent but required the daily help of carers.

Claire Conroy, who was close to her mother-in-law, described her as a fantastic person whom she would often go to for advice.

On the Monday of the Bank Holiday, Nigel Canavan went to work at a hotel in Knock. On his way home, he bought some food from a takeaway and drank from a bottle of vodka he had purchased earlier.

At about 8.30pm, he called emergency services to say that he had found his mother dead in her kitchen.

In a voluntary interview later that evening, he told detectives that he had been arguing with his mother and went upstairs to get away from her.

He said he heard a series of loud bangs, and when he came downstairs to investigate, he found her dead on the floor.

Taking the stand at his trial, Canavan accepted that he had been present when his mother died and that he had caused her death.

He refused to accept that he had lied or tried to mislead gardaí in his interviews, claiming that any incorrect statement he made was because he wasn’t thinking clearly due to stress.

He said that when he arrived home that night, he confronted his mother about her excessive drinking, and she reacted by launching a “tirade” of abuse at him.

He claimed she smashed a chair, stabbed herself in each leg with a steak knife and waved the knife at him, forcing him to wrestle the weapon from her.

He said he struck her on the top of the head with a piece of the broken chair and pushed her onto the couch using his forearm against her neck and with his hand to her face.

He veered from claiming that his mother deliberately provoked him to claiming that he acted in self-defence.

However, the evidence of State Pathologist Dr SallyAnne Collis showed extensive injuries, including bruises and lacerations, all over Angela Canavan’s body.

She found injuries to the inside of her mouth that matched her teeth, proving that force had been applied to her mouth to stop her breathing. Bruising to her neck showed that she had also been strangled.

The pathologist insisted that death from strangulation and smothering would have taken some minutes.

Prosecution counsel Conor Devally SC suggested that the jury could reject everything Canavan said as “bulls**t”.

He asked the jury to look at the forensic and pathology evidence and conclude that Canavan is guilty of murdering his mother.

Desmond Dockery SC, defending, asked the jury to consider whether it could be reasonably possible that a person would be provoked into losing all self-control at hearing their mother telling them they wished they had never had them.

He asked the jury to consider whether it was reasonably possible that Canavan believed his life was in danger and that what he did next was in self-defence.

Although she had mobility issues, Dockery said CCTV footage from a local shop on the day of her death showed that Angela Canavan was a “sturdily built woman”.