Cut-throat killing man doesn't know why he did it

A man who admits a cut-throat killing has told a jury that he does not know why he did it.

But John Cleary denied that he intended murder when he beat Kenneth Foley outside a flat in Inchicore, and then slashed his throat with a kitchen knife as he lay on the ground.

In the Central Criminal Court trial before Mr Justice O'Higgins, Cleary, aged 24, of St Mark's Avenue, Clondalkin, Dublin admitted beating and then fatally stabbing Kenneth Foley, aged 45, at Jamestown Court in Inchicore but he has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Mr Foley, a single man with an address at Tyrconnell Road, Inchicore, was found with his throat cut on the steps of the 'old folks complex' at Jamestown Court in the early hours of January 15, 1999.

The deputy state pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy said Mr Foley was highly intoxicated at the time of his death and as a result, he would have been less capable of defending himself.

She found multiple knife wounds to his head and neck as well as bruising and abrasions to the head, face, legs and back.

She said that death was due to a cut-throat injury that severed a major vessel in the neck, the jugular vein.

She agreed with prosecution lawyer Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC that the fatal wound, 16.5cm in length, was almost ear-to-ear, "in an anatomical position directly down from the ear, but across."

She said that fractured ribs and bruising to the back of the head were consistent with a heavy fall down the steps.

The neck wound suggested that Mr Foley's throat was cut open by an assailant standing behind him pulling his head back, she said.

In his evidence to the jury, John Cleary denied that he had pulled Mr Foley's head back before he cut his throat. "I was swinging the knife at him and then he fell. Then I just ran the knife across his neck", he said. "Yeah, as easy as that", he told counsel.

He said he did not know why he did it. Counsel put it to him that he was "cute enough" to try to hide the evidence: he had burnt a pair of black gloves he was wearing and dumped them in a park on the way home and he had broken the knife he had used in two and pushed its blade into grass in the park.

The jury has heard that after his arrest a day later, Cleary showed gardai where he tried to hide the knife and the gloves. The blade of the knife was never recovered but a black handle was found in the park and identified as the one used.

Cleary told prosecution counsel Mr Buckley that the next day, he was "in town having a few gargles".

He denied that it was as if nothing had happened; he knew that they had given Foley "a fair oul' hiding", he said.

He accepted that to cut someone's throat was a serious injury but he said he wasn't thinking of that at the time.

Cleary told his own counsel, David Goldberg SC that he did not think he intended to do what he did.

"I was a bit freaked out really", he said. "I was in the height of it, freaked, you know."

He said the trigger for how he reacted was "just that he was slagging me, you know".

The jury heard that earlier, inside the flat, Kenneth Foley called Cleary "a scumbag" and "a robber" when Cleary asked if he wanted to walk home with him.

Cleary reacted by robbing Foley of his watch and a gold signet ring.

He said that when he left the flat, Foley came out after him and called him "a scumbag" and "a dirtbird".

He denied that he had waited outside for Mr Foley, contradicting an account he gave to gardai.

Earlier, a clinical psychologist was called by the defence to give evidence of her treatment of Cleary after he was subjected to a "horrific" sexual assault when he was 14 years old.

Cleary hid what had happened to him from his parents for three days. He was then hospitalised.

A bottle used in the assault had to be surgically removed.

The incident happened in Arthur Griffith Park, Clondalkin in 1993, when he was chased by a gang of 19-year-olds.

Dr Rosario Power said her assessment at the time was that Cleary was not acknowledging his upset about what had happened to him.

He had "a flat affect" when talking about it, and there was "a mismatch" between his story, which was "obviously quite horrific", and the mood it was being told in, which was "flat", she said.

She told Mr Goldberg that problems could arise when people either internalised trauma, leading to low self esteem and possible self-harm, or when they externalised it, leading them to mistrust others and be harmful in their relationships with others.

There were other people, she said, who were "more resilient", and fell into neither category.

She said that at the time, from what John's mother Mrs Mary Cleary told her about his changed behaviour, she "would have leaned more towards the externalised category" in her assessment of him, because he flew off the handle more following the incident and was "more aggressive towards his peers".

The defence has suggested in evidence that the sexual assault left Cleary with a marked change in behaviour where he began to lash out in violence when he was subjected to verbal abuse.

The jury is expected to retire to reach a verdict in the case on Tuesday next.