THE funeral of an Irish father bludgeoned to death in his US home can take place with his two young children present after a judge ruled they could return to Ireland.
Judge April Wood at Lexington District Court yesterday upheld a previous ruling that 10-year-old Jack Corbett and his eight-year-old sister Sarah should remain in the care of their aunt Tracey Lynch and her husband David.
The children’s 39-year-old Limerick-born father Jason Corbett was found fatally injured at the family’s North Carolina home on August 2. He had been attacked with a baseball bat in a late-night assault.
Mr Corbett’s remains were repatriated last week with plans to bury him beside his first wife and the mother of his two children, Mags Fitzpatrick, who died from an asthma attack in 2006.
However, his Irish relatives had vowed that the funeral would not take place until the tragic father’s children could attend.
The Fitzpatrick and Corbett families have been conducting a high profile campaign on both sides of the Atlantic to bring the children home.
The youngsters have been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between Ms Lynch and her brother’s second wife, US-born Molly Martens (32).
Judge Wood yesterday dismissed Ms Martens' case for custody, paving the way for the children to travel back to the city of their birth for their father's funeral.
