Accused accepts he killed child

A former soldier accused of murdering an infant today accepted in court that he had killed the child, 18-months old Oisin Reilly-Murphy.

When he took the stand, the accused man, John Reilly was asked: "Have you accepted with certainty that you killed Oisin?"

"Yes" he replied.

Defence counsel Mr Patrick Marrinan SC then asked if there was any reason "deep down" as to why he had killed Oisin.

"No" Mr Reilly replied. Asked how he felt about Oisin, he said: "As I would about any child, that they are children...that they ought to be raised properly, protected."

Mr Reilly told the jury he had great respect for the child's parents, his cousin, Mr Tommy Reilly, and partner Ms Grainne Murphy, for the way they had coped since Oisin's death.

"Their ability to talk to me...to look at me. They're solid people," he said.

The court has heard that the infant was stabbed to death in the sitting room of Mr Hugh Reilly's house (Tommy Reilly's brother).

The accused and the child's parents had stayed overnight there and had spent the evening drinking and playing cards.

John Reilly was home on leave from Iraq, where he had been working as a UN sanctions inspector.

Some years earlier, he completed two tours of duty in the Lebanon while a member of the Irish Army Rangers wing.

In direct evidence, the accused told the jury he could not remember seeing Oisin "at all" that evening.

He arrived at Hugh Reilly's house close to midnight on July 4 2000 and joined Oisin's parents, Hugh Reilly and his wife Siobhan in the kitchen.

He recalled having a couple of cans of beer after which he thought he had a can of cider.

Hugh Reilly then produced a bottle of Poitin and offered a glass to him and Tommy, he said but he could not say exactly how much he drank.

Asked what the atmosphere was like, he replied: "Nice. Just us sitting around together."

Mr Reilly said he remembered walking from the kitchen to the hallway.

Asked if he recalled lying down on the sitting room couch, he said he did not remember specifically getting onto the couch.

The next thing he remembered was standing in the sitting room the next morning "looking down" and hearing crying all around him.

"Hearing Tommy and Grainne crying, about Oisin had been killed... and Hughie and Siobhan trying to understand what had happened."

He told the jury he remembered seeing his knife lying in an extended position on the sitting room floor, picking it up and closing it before throwing it back onto the floor.

Siobhan had told him to "leave it down -leave it there."

He said he remembered standing in the kitchen "trying to keep her at arm's length...to clear space and try to get to grips with it."

"Which was what?" counsel asked.

"Which was Oisin's death," the accused replied.

He recalled, amongst the "crying, the anger and the confusion", the others looking at him "in a way that said to me 'it's your fault'."

It was not until later that evening in the garda station during a visit from his brother it began to dawn on him that he could be responsible, the accused said.

Asked how he felt then, Mr Reilly replied: "Sick. I felt I was somehow in the category of people who could do that to kids." He added that he felt "shame".

When asked how he would cope with the knowledge that he could be responsible for killing Oisin, he said he would "just live. I don't know. Cope?...there's nothing...I'll just be myself and that's how I'll get through this."

Mr John Reilly (32) of Crooksling, Brittas Co Dublin denies murdering Oisin Reilly-Murphy (18 months) of Manor Kilbride, co Wicklow on June 5 2000 at Kiltalown Road, Jobstown, Tallaght, Co Dublin.

The defence is that of sane automatism, whereby a person with no history of psychiatric disturbance commits a purposeless act of which there is no memory.

Earlier, an expert medical witness told the court that sleepwalking, night terrors or a combination of both may have caused Mr Reilly's actions.

The sleep disorders could have been trigged by heavy amounts of alcohol.

Dr Hugh Staunton, neorologist and lecturer at the College of Surgeons, said there could be an overlap of these type of behaviours.

It was also possible that someone sleepwalking could carry out complicated acts, such as getting a knife out of one's pocket, he told the jury.

Dr Staunton said that in sane automatism, the act is done automatically, as though the person was on auto-pilot.

"One would not perform a purposeless act if one were in full control of one's senses," he added.

Cross examined by the prosecution on the possible effects of alcohol, Dr Staunton said there was no evidence of "heightened level of aggression" in the accused before going to bed on the night of the murder.

Having gone placidly to bed, one does not suddenly spring into action and commit a homicide, he told the jury.

The witness added, however, that there is increasing evidence that alcohol triggers sleep disorders, such as night terrors and sleep walking.

He referred to documented cases of murders committed during sleep walking, but said "this is the first time I have seen a case of homicide" linked to such.

The trial resumes on Monday.