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Juraci Da Silva: from arrival to a fatal stabbing in two months

The Brazilian national came to Waterford for factory work in August 2016. After being assaulted twice on a night out that October, he armed himself, pursued the men after the immediate danger had passed and fatally stabbed James Banville. A jury convicted him of manslaughter—not murder—and he received eight years.

Published 28 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger
August 2016Arrived for work
8 October 2016Fatal stabbing
ManslaughterNot murder
8 yearsFinal prison sentence

Juraci Da Silva had been in Ireland for roughly two months when a Waterford night out ended with one man dead and another wounded. The public record does not support reducing the case to a simple unprovoked attack: Da Silva was assaulted twice and subjected to racial and sexual abuse. It also does not support erasing what followed. Once the two men moved away and the immediate danger had ended, Da Silva pursued them with a knife and drove it into James “Jay” Banville’s heart.

Arrival, work and a night in Waterford

Da Silva, a Brazilian national, arrived in Ireland in August 2016 after being recruited to work in a Waterford meat factory. He lived with other Brazilians at Park Lane Apartments in the city centre. The sentencing court heard that he was a hard-working man with no previous convictions.

On 7 October 2016, Da Silva finished work, went out with flatmates and drank for several hours. Shortly before 3am the following morning, CCTV recorded him in Cross Lanes, where he encountered Banville and Conor Hogan.

Two assaults did not justify a fatal pursuit

The trial established that Banville and Hogan assaulted Da Silva twice over about 20 minutes. The first assault was accompanied by racial abuse. Witnesses said Da Silva had done nothing to provoke it and heard him being told to go back to his own country. After Da Silva returned near his apartment, changed clothes and re-emerged, the two men encountered and struck him again. The court heard sexual insults were also used.

Those assaults were central to the defence case and to the eventual manslaughter verdict. But the sentencing judge found that Banville and Hogan had moved on and Da Silva was no longer under threat. Da Silva then ran after them toward New Street while armed with a knife.

The third confrontation was outside the CCTV coverage. Banville suffered a single stab wound to the heart and died. Hogan was also stabbed and required stitches. Forensic examination found both men’s blood on the knife.

The jury rejected murder but convicted manslaughter

Da Silva admitted killing Banville and offered to plead guilty to manslaughter. The prosecution did not accept that plea and put him on trial for murder. Its case was that the pursuit was revenge; the defence relied on provocation, loss of self-control and self-defence.

On 20 October 2017, after more than four hours of deliberation, the Central Criminal Court jury returned its verdicts:

Those distinctions are not technical footnotes. Da Silva is a convicted killer, but his conviction is manslaughter, not murder, and the jury expressly acquitted him of the separate assault charge concerning Hogan.

Eight years, backdated to the night of the killing

On 27 November 2017, Mr Justice Michael White imposed eight years for manslaughter and a concurrent five years for producing the knife. The term was backdated to 8 October 2016, when Da Silva entered custody.

The judge placed the offence in the lower range of the highest manslaughter category and identified 14 years as the available maximum starting point in the circumstances. He reduced the term after weighing the two serious assaults, the abuse, Da Silva’s lack of previous convictions, his work record and the additional difficulty of imprisonment for a Brazilian national with no English.

The mitigation did not remove responsibility. The judge stressed that Da Silva had armed himself, went after the men when he was no longer in immediate danger and used the knife lethally. Banville’s death was described as a tragedy of epic proportions for the family he left behind.

Case chronology

A conditional prison-space illustration

The Irish Prison Service reported an average 2024 cost of €99,072 per available, staffed prison space, excluding capital expenditure. Multiplying that benchmark by the eight-year sentence gives a maximum sentence-length illustration of about €792,576.

This is not an audited personal bill and does not establish that Da Silva served eight full calendar years. The sentence was backdated, and actual custody can be affected by remission, release arrangements and other decisions. The calculation also applies one later annual benchmark across the entire term and excludes Garda investigation, forensic work, prosecution, legal aid, healthcare and the incalculable loss borne by Banville’s family.

What the record does—and does not—establish

The record expressly establishes that Da Silva is Brazilian, came to Ireland for work in August 2016, had no previous convictions and received an eight-year sentence after a killing two months later. No reliable source located for this file establishes that he was an asylum applicant, unlawfully resident, subject to deportation or removed after custody. No such claim is made here.

The warning in this case is strongest when it is precise. A newly arrived worker was attacked and abused; rather than withdrawing or reporting the violence, he armed himself, pursued his attackers and made a fatal choice. The law recognised both sides of that sequence: it rejected murder, convicted manslaughter and imposed eight years.

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