A man fined £200 for assaulting a person found fatally injured on a Belfast street just months later carried out a “degrading” attack in Derry.
Dylan Quaile, who has multiple convictions for assault, received the fine for attacking 39-year-old Dubliner Gareth Rynne, who died in August 2022.
Police launched a murder investigation following the death of Mr Rynne, who died two days after he was picked up unconscious outside McDonalds on Donegall Place, Belfast.
But following the investigation, Quaile, 31 and originally from Fermanagh, pleaded guilty to common assault on Mr Rynne in March 2024.
Detectives investigating were unable to track all of Mr Rynne’s movements in the hours after the Callender Street incident so prosecutors could not link the assault and his death.
District Judge John Rea, imposing a £200 fine, said: “The offence itself is not significant enough to merit a custodial sentence.”
Quaile was sentenced last month to 18 months for the attack on an “inebriated, vulnerable individual”, which happened in September 2024 on Derry’s Waterloo Street. Another man involved in the attack was sentenced to 20 months.
Derry Crown Court heard Quaile had 64 previous convictions, including nine for assault, and was assessed by the probation service as being of high risk of reoffending.
A prosecution barrister told the court the defendants had subjected their victim to “gratuitous degradation” during the attack, according to a BBC report.
The victim sustained injuries to his face and head “and there was also a hole pierced through the left side of his mouth”, the court heard.
Quaile “feigned a hug with the victim before landing a significant blow to his face area” while the other defendant beat him as he was “prone on the ground”.
“Both were highly intoxicated and the offending took place in a public area in front of members of the public. The victim was vulnerable due to his level of intoxication but nothing in his conduct should have drawn this assault. It was totally unprovoked,” Judge Roseanne McCormick said.
Gareth Rynne’s died after suffering from subdural hematoma where blood collects between the skull and surface of the brain but where there are no fractures.
His mother, Paula, told the Irish News she was resigned to the decision not to hold an inquest into his death.
She described a coroner’s report into the death of her only son as “absolutely comprehensive”, adding the “police investigation was as thorough as it could have been”.
On Quaile, Mrs Rynne said: “I am not going to wish him the best.
“He has a life that my son does not have. I am indifferent to him and he is not going to have any impact on the rest of my life.”
