Man hit his sleeping wife with a hammer on her birthday

A man has gone on trial charged with attempting to murder his wife on her birthday by hitting her over the head with a hammer while she slept.

The Central Criminal Court heard the accused had left their Dublin home early on his wife’s 32nd birthday, before returning with flowers for her. However, the prosecutor said that instead of bringing the flowers upstairs to his sleeping wife, he brought up a lump hammer and hit her over the head with it at least three times.

The court heard the woman was now confined to a wheelchair most of the time, had communication difficulties and would depend on full-time care for the rest of her life.

Andrzej Benko, aged 42, of Ladyswell Road, Mulhuddert, has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Joanna Benko at that address on July 5, 2010.

Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, told the jury it would have to decide whether Mr Benko intended to kill his wife when he assaulted her.

The court heard a recording of the emergency call Mr Benko made as he drove to Blanchardstown Garda Station that morning.

“The problem is that probably I killed my wife and now I’m on my way to you to be jailed. Ring an ambulance. Maybe you can save her because I hit her by hammer in head.”

Garda Rosanna Coll testified he was “panicked and agitated” when he arrived into the station.

“She was in bed sleeping on her right side,” he told her, adding that he’d hit her left temple three times with a hammer.

“She was shouting at me illogically every day since January,” he said.

“When I was going upstairs, I intended to kill her,” he said. “I wanted to, then didn’t want, then want.”

“I wasn’t thinking,” he continued. “I was destroyed financially and emotionally.”

Asked if he had anything to add, he said his wife was associated with “drug dealers and gangsters.”

“I’m guilty, I know,” he said later. “I’m just praying she is to survive.”

He said his wife had been taking drugs for a long time, had stopped taking amphetamines in 2005 and started smoking cannabis.

He said that she had been spending money ‘illogically’ since December 2009. “I had no money for mortgage and had to borrow,” he said.

The trial continues.