A man will today be handed a life sentence for the capital murder of Detective Garda Colm Horkan.

Stephen Silver, of Foxford, Co Mayo, shot the detective with his own gun as he tried to arrest him in Castlerea, County Roscommon in June 2020.

Last month, a jury found Stephen Silver guilty of capital murder in what was a retrial before the Central Criminal Court.

The trial heard he shot Detective Colm Horkan 11 times after taking his standard issue firearm off him while the garda was attempting to arrest him.

He admitted to shooting him but claimed he was suffering a relapse of a mental disorder at the time.

The issue for the jurors to decide was whether he had the mental capacity to form the requisite intent for murder.

The jury in his original trial were unable to reach agreement, but he was convicted of capital murder after nine hours of deliberations in his retrial.

Detective Horkan’s family will be given an opportunity to deliver a victim impact statement at his sentence hearing later this morning.

Once that’s done, Silver will be handed a mandatory life sentence.

Because murdering a garda is a capital crime, he will not be eligible for parole for forty years.