Grieving family of murder victim Billy Moore say no punishment will compare to the pain killer has caused

THE grieving family of murder victim Billy Moore say no punishment will compare to the pain caused by his convicted killer James Ireland, who started a life sentence on his 41st birthday.

A family impact statement revealed “beautiful and intelligent” Billy had made one final call to his dad saying he was “dying and loved him” following a fatal stab wound to the neck as his killer was too drunk to remember what he was doing.

As James Ireland marked his 41st birthday today (Thursday) with a life sentence with a recommendation of 19 years before he can seek parole, the lengthy victim impact statement on behalf of Billy Moore’s family told how he was intelligent and had a wicked sense of humour and that they would never recover from their loss.

“He may have had struggles in life but he had the love of his family to support him and friends who believed in him and he had hope in his heart.”
“At 31 years old, Billy was just at the beginning of his life. He was an avid boxing fan and volunteered his time to a homeless charity.
Referring to Ireland the statement went on to say, “While your hobbies may have included collecting knives, Billy collected books. He was beautifully intelligent and had a wicked sense of humour.
It added: “Not once have you ever displayed the slightest remorse for taking his life.”
“We grieve for Billy, for the difficulties he experienced in his life, for his horrendous death, and for the future he will never have.
“We grieve for ourselves, for the people we were before you took Billy from our lives.
“We grieve for a time we didn’t know such evil and pain.
“We cling to the lives we knew beforehand.
“We can never recover from this, we can never forget.
“You need to be held accountable for what you have done because Billy’s life and death need to matter.
“There is no punishment you can ever receive that will compare to the pain that you caused us.”

During the trial, the jury heard the timeline of Ireland’s movements on the fateful night and the statement gave a mirror account of Billy’s movements.
This told how at 10.20 pm – ten minutes before the attack – he was having a text conversation with his dad and at 10.38 pm he made one last call to him “saying he was dying and loved him.”
Between 11 – 1 am while Ireland was too drunk to remember what he was doing Billy’s dad was making frantic calls from his Dorset home to hospitals unsuccessfully trying to find out what was happening.

During the next half hour, both he and Billy’s mum learnt that he had died and later while Ireland was concocting lies, Billy’s family was sitting traumatised.
At 4.30am, while Ireland was sending laughing emojis to his daughter, Mr Moore’s immediate family was beginning to make calls to his family and friends to inform them that he had died.
The impact statement went on to say: “We have lived with six months of darkness caused by you. We will never see his red hair, his infectious smile, the warmth in his eyes.”
“I am incandescent with rage. We grieve for Billy, for the difficulties he experienced in his life, for his horrendous death, and for the future he will never have.
“You have taken away his dreams, hopes and future happiness, taken away his chance to have a family, dreams of attending university.”
The statement concluded by describing Ireland as “a dangerous and disturbed man.”