Victim impact statement tells of the effect the murder of Anne Shortall has had on her children
The children of a woman murdered by a man she had a one-night stand with have told the Central Criminal Court of the devastation he has caused.
In a Victim Impact Statement read out on behalf of Anne Shortall’s son David, the court heard how he has become a totally different person since her death.
On Wednesday, he said he should have been embracing his mother with open arms and saying ‘Happy Birthday’, but instead he put flowers on her grave.
A Wicklow man has been jailed for life for the murder of a woman he had a one-night stand with over Christmas 2014.
Roy Webster, a cabinet maker from Ashford, beat Anne Shortall to death four months later after she threatened to tell his wife he had cheated on her.
Mr Webster’s lips started to quiver when he was asked to stand in the dock before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy.
An hour beforehand, a jury found him guilty of murdering Anne Shortall on Good Friday 2015.
At his sentence hearing, Anne’s daughter Alanna told the court her whole world fell apart when she found out how her mother had died so “brutally”.
Roy Webster hit her nine times in the head with a claw hammer and left her body in his work van before hiding it in a workshop beside his house.
He claimed she was looking for money for an abortion and threatening to tell his wife they had had a one-night stand.
A post mortem revealed she was not pregnant.
Webster started to cry when the mandatory life sentence was handed down and mouthed “I’m sorry” to the Shortalls as he was being led away.
