Accused was provoked, murder trial told

THE lawyer for the Cork man accused of murdering a young Englishman said yesterday that the defendant killed him after the deceased provoked him by claiming that his father had been in a loyalist organisation.

Provocation is the defence in the case, Tom Creed SC told Mr Justice Paul Carney and the jury at the Central Criminal Court in Cork.

Timothy O’Driscoll, aged 34, from St Rita’s Avenue, Gurranabraher, denies a charge of murdering Lee McCarthy, aged 25, on April 17, 2010, at 12 St Rita’s Avenue.