Prisoner who stabbed cellmate bitter at system

A Mountjoy prisoner on trial for murder has told a jury he was angry and bitter at "the system" when he stabbed his cellmate in the chest as he lay sleeping in bed.

The trial heard that the two prisoners, who shared a cell for two-and-a-half weeks before the incident, were both heroin users. Prison staff took another knife off the accused man three weeks before the stabbing.

In the Central Criminal Court, Laurence ('Larry') Murphy, aged 24, with a last address at Swilly Road, Cabra, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Thomas Brady, aged 22, in Cell 18, A3 Landing, Mountjoy Prison, on 23rd April 2000. Mr Brady was from Rowlagh Crescent, Neilstown, Dublin.

In a statement to gardai, Murphy said he was "strung out on heroin" when he stabbed his cellmate with what he called "a butter knife". He told his trial jury that he did not intend to kill Brady. Asked if he had intended to do him serious injury, he said he didn't know.

Murphy told the jury that he was in four juvenile institutions in England and Scotland from the age of 14, and that he had spent all but 11 months in prisons in Ireland since the age of 16.

Under cross-examination by Mr Paul McDermott SC, he said that on the night of the stabbing, he became uneasy about not seeing his son and family, and that "jail itself is a burden on your shoulders, never mind anything else."

He agreed that he was angry and bitter. "I was bitter about the system taking my father away from me when I was only a kid", he said.

The trial heard that the accused was three years old when his father, also called Laurence Murphy, was imprisoned for eight-and-a-half years.

The state pathologist Dr John Harbison earlier told the court that it "took a very considerable thrust to drive such a rounded knife into the chest" of Thomas Brady. The knife was stuck some three inches into the chest, fatally wounding the heart and aorta.

In direct evidence to defence counsel Ms Marie Torrens BL, Larry Murphy said that when he was sitting on the bed before he stabbed Brady, "everything I seen, everything I felt in my life just came into my head all at once.

"I couldn't think, me brain was numb", he said. He told counsel he was sitting thinking about his son.

"At the time I was doing five years and I was thinking about being out, being with him, and all of a sudden it just came over me".

The trial heard that Murphy was admitted to the Central Mental Hospital three times - twice prior to the stabbing, and once after it. He was also an out-patient at St Brendan's hospital.

The medical orderly at Wheatfield prison, Dr Richard Mullin told Mr Gerard Clarke SC, defending, that a note on Murphy's file showed 15 referrals to psychiatrists in 1996 and 1997 and three in April and May 2000. Psychiatric reports relating to him dated back to 1994 in Glasgow.

The deputy governor of Mountjoy, Mr Vincent Duffy, told the court of ten disciplinary reports on the prison file, including ones for possession of heroin, impersonating another prisoner in order to get methadone, and injecting drugs in front of a prison officer. The file showed that in June 1996, Murphy was disciplined for taking another prisoner hostage, and in February 2000, he was disciplined for fighting with another prisoner.

On 31st March 2000, some three weeks before he stabbed Mr Brady, he was found in possession of a knife and disciplined for this and for fighting with another prisoner.

Murphy told the court that on that occasion, all his privileges were taken off him. He told the prosecution counsel, Mr McDermott, that he could not say where he got the knife he used in the attack on Brady, which he filed down with sandpaper and sharpened against the window ledge outside his cell.

Asked when he did that, he replied, "I don't know 'cause I had three or four similar knives the exact same."

Asked why did he try to sharpen it, he told counsel: "Because there's no reason to have a knife if it don't cut butter."

Mr McDermott put it to him that the more he would sharpen it, the more it would hurt someone. "Yeah, 'cause when you're fighting in prison it's either you that's going to get hurt or someone else", the accused replied.

He agreed with counsel that he believed Thomas Brady had a better life than him. "But I didn't begrudge him it", he said.

He agreed that he took the knife from where he had concealed it under a chair in the cell and brought it to his bed, where he sat thinking for some time before he stabbed Brady. Asked why he had the knife in his hand, he said he was "just looking at it."

"All the time thinking how awful the system was, is that right?" Mr McDermott put it to him. "Yeah, I think like that every day anyway", the accused replied.

He agreed that he had told gardai that the thought that came into his mind before he took the knife and stabbed Brady was "Fuck the world". "I was born into this world, I didn't make it", he told counsel.

Yesterday, the jury also heard that after first telling prison staff that he stabbed Brady because he was snoring, Murphy later contradicted that claim in a statement to gardai.

On 25 April 2000 at Mountjoy garda station, he told Inspector Francis Sweeney (at the time a detective sergeant): "I did not stab Tommo because he was snoring. I just said that to the screw because that was the first thing that came into my head. I don't know why I done it."

"I don't know why I did it, I didn't mean to kill this young fellow", he told gardai. "I was strung out on heroin and it was affecting me in a major way. "

Murphy told gardai he had asked for a transfer but the prison authorities told him he wouldn't get one because he was facing charges. "They just wouldn't listen to me", he said.

He said that, at the time, he was in jail for an assault on a garda, and that he was also facing two charges of robbery.

Drug screening on Thomas Brady's urine suggested he had taken heroin in the 24 hours prior to his death, the court also heard. He was HIV positive at the time of his death.

The trial is expected to reach its closing stages tomorrow before Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns and the jury.