‘FERAL ANIMAL’ | 

Woman attacked with hammer by killer rapist Ian Horgan warns ‘he’ll kill again’

Furious mum reveals Horgan rained down blows from a claw hammer on her unconscious son’s head and would have killed him if she hadn’t thrown her body between them.

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Killer rapist Ian Horgan — jailed this week for nine years over a brutal hammer attack on a pensioner mum and her son — will kill again on his release from prison, his 66-year-old victim has warned.

Brave Mary O’Callaghan told the Sunday World how during the attack on March 26, 2022, Horgan rained down blows from a claw hammer on her unconscious son’s head and would have killed him if she hadn’t thrown her body between them.

“I personally believe he would have killed my son that day,” Mary told the Sunday World, in her first full interview since Wednesday’s sentencing.

“I don’t know how many times he hit my son. All I can say is he kept hitting and hitting him. Even when he was lying helpless on the ground.

“All that stopped him was I got in between the two of them and I started shouting at him: ‘He’s dead, he’s dead!’ And when I put my hand up to block the hammer he swung it down on me, breaking my wrist.

“I was in such a panic, I didn’t even feel it. I didn’t even feel the whack. But that’s the kind of feral animal he is.

“There’s no rehabilitating him.

“He raped and killed a young woman when he was a 16-year-old.

“He was convicted of manslaughter and he was convicted of rape but all they say is he’s served his time and that’s it.

“He should never again have seen the light of day after that. The next time he gets out, I’ve no doubt about this, he’ll kill again.”

At this week’s sentencing hearing before Cork Circuit Court, details of vile Horgan’s career of criminality were disclosed.

Horgan was only 16 when, in October 2000, he raped and killed beautician Rachel Kiely — attacking her as she walked her dog in Ballincollig Regional Park.

The vicious killer also has 17 other convictions for affray, violent disorder and robbery.

Detailing the premeditated nature of the attack on Mary and her son, Detective Superintendent Michael Comyns said Horgan had put clothing, runners and a hammer into a plastic bag at his home in Macroom, before getting a bus to Cork city and walking to the victim’s home at McCurtain Villas, off the Bandon Road.

Wearing a hood and covering his face with a snood, he knocked on the family’s front door before pushing past Mary O’Callaghan and running at her son, who tried to disarm him of the hammer.

Det Supt Comyns said Horgan then grabbed Mary’s son around the neck for 20 to 30 seconds, causing him to collapse unconscious by the fireplace.

He then struck him on the left side of the head with the hammer, fracturing his skull and cheekbone,” he said.

When Mary tried to intervene, he assaulted her with a hammer fracturing her right wrist.

Sickeningly, the court heard, before Horgan left the scene, he shared videos of the crime scene with his then girlfriend, who had previously been in a relationship with Mary’s son.

He also said in texts to her his knuckles were sore and he “was washing off blood”.

“I destroyed him,” he gloated in another text.

Mary said the first time she had learned of the existence of the videos was then a clip was played in court this week.

“I only saw two seconds of the video he made of what he did that day,” she said.

“A two second clip was all they showed in the court. My son was lying on the couch, when that video was recorded, and I genuinely thought he was dead! I was hysterical. I never knew that (the video) even existed.

“After they played it, I kept staring at him inside in the court and I thought — you animal!

“And I mean what I say if it was up to me he would never see the light of day again.”

Horgan’s defence counsel James O’Mahony told the court that his client had spared the State a lengthy trial by pleading guilty, that he had written letters of apology to the two victims, and he was trying to put his time in prison to good use.

But an outraged Mary described the apology letters “as the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.”

“We were in the court,” she said. “I could see he didn’t care.

“Those two letters of apology were the biggest load of crap I ever heard in my life.

“He’s never shown any remorse over anything he’s done and over what he did to me and my son, he’s shown no remorse whatsoever.

“Letters of apology? They mean absolutely nothing to me.

“I would never ever forgive him — ever! The only thing I can say is I hope he rots in hell. I don’t care what anyone says — that’s me — I want him to rot in hell!”

Sentencing Horgan to nine years with the last six months suspended, Judge Helen Boyle said premeditation was an aggravating factor in the case, as was the fact he had armed himself with a hammer and directed the blows at the head of Mary’s son causing fractures to his skull, jaw and the orbital bone around his eye socket.

The judge said the injured man was left with significant physical difficulties, a stammer, headaches, nightmares, seizures and extensive scarring.

“I suffered a broken wrist but that was nothing compared to what he did to my son,” Mary told us.

“So, I’d be quite happy if he dies in jail. I’d have no sympathy whatsoever. If the worst that could happen to him happens — I’d be delighted.

“The record he has? I sat there in court and listened to it all and I thought to myself — why was he ever allowed out?

“And now, after what he did to my son, why are they ever letting him out again?”