An amateur fighter who showed “callous indifference” in killing his allegedly abusive mother – kicking her to death and stepping on her “lifeless body” as he left her to die – has been jailed for 6½ years. The actions of Luke Donnelly (29), who told a jury he “lost all control” and kicked Catherine Henry (62) to death after she threatened to kill him, have “severely divided” his family, the Central Criminal Court heard previously.Sentencing Donnelly on Friday, Judge Paul McDermott noted the defendant had consumed “a cocktail of drugs” and said this made him more susceptible to “mid-level provocation” from his mother and resulted in the “eruption of violence”. He said “a worrying feature” of the case was that Donnelly walked over his mother’s “prone body” and sought “absolutely no help for her”.“To my mind, there was a degree of callous indifference on his part as to his mother’s state and condition,” he said. The judge also said it was “concerning” that Henry was attacked in her own apartment, a place where she was entitled to feel safe. He said she had allowed Donnelly to stay with her as he was displaying worrying behaviour and had nowhere to go. He noted the killing had occurred “in the face” of a safety order Henry had taken out against Donnelly in 2020. Catherine Henry was killed by her son Luke Donnelly in her apartment in Dundalk in 2023. Donnelly was in February found not guilty of murdering Henry at an apartment on Bridge Street, Dundalk, Co Louth, between May 23rd and 24th, 2023. He was convicted of manslaughter after the jury accepted the defence that he was provoked.Donnelly told his trial he had been “groomed” into a life of drugs and violence by his allegedly abusive mother. “In my whole life of being attacked and abused I had never defended myself, just waited for it to be over,” he said. The trial heard that Donnelly accepted he caused multiple fractures to his mother’s skull and had left a bloodstained footprint on her back. A pathologist testified that Henry died from severe blunt force trauma to the head.Defence counsel Conall MacCarthy, seeking a verdict of manslaughter, argued that the defendant and his mother had a “complex, sad and disturbing” relationship. He said there was evidence of the deceased being prone to “sudden outbursts of violence”.The trial also heard that Donnelly had been behaving in “an erratic way” in the months before the killing, including by repeatedly asserting that he was Jesus Christ.Donnelly accepted he had “loaded up” on a cocktail of drugs in the hours before the killing and recalled his mother coming into a bedroom and asking for his key back.He said he told her he was the son of God and could not take the “controlling abuse” any more. He said his mother lunged at him and he could feel his head and arms being hit. He said he was in fear for his life, snapped and threw a punch, which connected with Henry. “I lost all control and proceeded to stomp, it all happened in a moment.” The accused told the court that he was a qualified fitness instructor and an amateur kickboxer.Before passing sentence, the judge said he was conscious of the family’s history and that family members had expressed differing views and attitudes to Henry.Earlier this month, a member of the dead woman’s family told the court it felt as if Henry had been the one on trial, while another said Donnelly was “never given a chance” by his “very violent” mother.The judge said Henry was “an attentive grandmother” and the most important person in “this whole event” as she was the one whose life was ended by “very serious violence”.He said Donnelly’s long-standing drug abuse has had a serious impact on his life and was a factor in what he did but not a defence for it. He said the probation services found Donnelly’s emotional regulation deficits, combined with his drug misuse and exposure to violence from a young age, had contributed to what happened. The probation services also noted a high risk of reoffending, he said, and this had to be borne in mind.He said Donnelly’s criminal history only related to drug abuse and was not of a violent nature. The judge set a headline sentence of 10 years before considering mitigation. He sentenced Donnelly to 7½ years, but suspended the last 12 months for a period of two years on various terms.