Stepson walked into the knife, accused told gardaí

The stepfather of missing teenager Amy Fitzpatrick told gardaí that her brother had walked into the knife he was holding, his murder trial has heard.

David Mahon had arrived at Coolock Garda Station after ringing to say: “It was me”.

Memos of his statements to gardaí were being read to the jury yesterday at the Central Criminal Court.

Mr Mahon, aged 46, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Dean Fitzpatrick, aged 23, on May 26, 2013, just over a day after the deceased interfered with his bicycle to annoy him.

The father of one received a stab wound to the abdomen at Burnell Square, Northern Cross, Dublin.

Garda Noel Brodigan testified he answered a call from a man at Coolock station on May 26. “This man identified himself as David Mahon,” he said. “He said: ‘It was me that did it. I didn’t know he was dead. I just heard it on the news this morning’.”

The caller accepted the invitation to the station and arrived a short time later.

The man said he and the deceased had an argument in his apartment the night before. He was asked what they were arguing about.

“He’s just an eejit. We were always arguing. He was always putting it up to me,” he said. “I was trying to put him on the straight and narrow. He took a knife. He pulled a knife on me before, a gun before. I took it off him. I put it into my back pocket.”

He said his friend, John McCormack, took Mr Fitzpatrick out of the apartment. He said he followed them.

“I took out the knife and said: ‘What are you doing, pulling a knife on your father?’ And he walked into the knife. He was putting it up to me and he walked into the knife.”

A pathologist earlier gave evidence that Mr Fitzpatrick could have run onto a knife being held by Mr Mahon.

Dr Michael Curtis testified he carried out an autopsy on the deceased. He said Mr Fitzpatrick had essentially bled to death from a single stab wound to his abdomen.

Remy Farrell, prosecuting, asked him about the possibility of a “run-on”, where someone was holding a knife and another person advanced onto it.

“This is a location in the body where that could happen,” he said.

He said that it would be more likely to be deliberate if the wound tracked steeply upwards or steeply downwards. He said that this had tracked only slightly upwards, so it could be either.

The trial continues.