A MAN who stabbed a young mum of two and left her to die on the floor of an apartment in Mallow has been jailed for ten years.

By Olivia Kelleher

Joseph Butler (43)  was originally charged with the murder of Paula Canty at an apartment in the Belfry, Bridewell Lane, on January 3 2025. The DPP subsequently accepted his plea of guilty to manslaughter.

Paula (31) from Kinsale died of a single knife wound to the chest. She was due to celebrate her 32^nd birthday just three days after the killing.

Butler, who is a native of Midleton initially told gardai he “didn’t feel guilty” about what had occurred as it was “an accident.”

At a sentencing hearing in the Central Criminal Court in Cork today (Friday) Judge Eileen Creedon completely dismissed the account of events which Butler had given to gardai.

She said that his claim that the killing was accidental and arose from a tussle was not in any way consistent with the evidence of the pathologist in the case.

“The accused’s versions of events were inconsistent with the postmortem and the blood-spatter analysis by forensic scientists. The blood pooling indicates that the deceased bled heavily at that location.

“Paula Canty was a vulnerable person, and was much smaller and physically weaker that Joseph Butler. It is not credible that she posed a danger to him that required him to plunge a knife 11.5 centimetres into her chest. He left the apartment and there was no call to the emergency services. This demonstrates a callousness.”

The judge imposed a sentence of 12 years with the last two years suspended.