€200K BILL TO GUARD JAILED KILLER IN COMA

THE taxpayer has forked at least €200,000 to keep three prison officers guarding a killer in hospital, we can reveal.

- BY PAUL HEALY

Prison bosses are hoping a pending court hearing for brutal killer Stephen Kearney, who has over 120 previous convictions, is struck out - so that officers no longer have to guard him in hospital 24 hours a day.

And his release date has technically already passed.

Kearney, 39, from Coultry Drive, Ballymun, who served a sentence for manslaughter, was due to be released from jail within weeks before he was attacked in the yard of Dublin's Mountjoy Prison in a brutal attack that left him in a critical condition on June 6.

Now sources have told this paper that Kearney has no prospect of recovering or returning to prison.

He also has no real prospect of appearing before the courts again - with a barrister previously telling a court in July that his client was seriously ill in hospital.