Accused was 'reckless' but not a murderer, court hears

An apprentice mechanic on the Naval ship LE Eithne was "foolish", "stupid", even "reckless" to put a crewmate on a guardrail from where he went overboard, but he was not a murderer, a defence counsel told a jury today.

The defence counsel, Mr Brendan Grehan BL said the actions of the accused man were those of a 19-year-old with 10 pints on board, rather than those of a sober, experienced seaman.

But counsel for the prosecution, Mr Tom O'Connell told the jury that the "inescapable conclusion" from the evidence was that Sean Lundon must have intended to drown his crewmate.

Mr O'Connell SC told the Central Criminal Court jury: "The natural and probable consequence of putting a drunken, beaten man into a river in the early hours of the morning and then walking away... is that the person will drown."

He alleged that Lundon "battered" Able Seaman Brian Gorey, carried him "like a sack of potatoes" to the deck and "pushed him overboard".

And he alleged that his failure to sound the alert, 'Man overboard', was a "callous" act that was further evidence of Lundon's intent.

The jury has heard that in statements to gardai, Sean Lundon said he and Brian Gorey had a row in the ship's recreation room in the early hours of the morning.

Lundon alleged that Gorey started the row by throwing an ashtray at him. He told gardai that he reacted by punching Brian Gorey in the face with clenched fists and striking his head with a broom handle.

But the prosecution counsel argued that Lundon's later admission that it was he, in fact, that had thrown the ashtray, combined with objective evidence from the scene, suggested that there was no row or melee, but that Brian Gorey was lying on a sofa when he was struck with something heavy enough to cause a large bloodstain some 12 by 16 inches on the couch.

Mr O'Connell also argued that it was "inherently incredible" that Able Seaman Brian Gorey would have then allowed the man who had just "battered him" to carry him "like a sack of potatoes" out to the ship's deck without offering any resistance.

He alleged that Mr Gorey was already temporarily concussed or unconscious when the accused man carried him to the after-deck and pushed him overboard.

It followed from that that the accused must have intended him to drown, or at the very minimum, intended to cause him serious injury, he said.

But in his closing speech for the accused man, Mr Brendan Grehan SC said that there was no evidence that Brian Gorey was concussed or unconsciousness at any stage that night. There was at best, the possibility allowed by the deputy state pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, in her evidence, that an injury to the side of Mr Gorey's face might have caused him to be temporarily concussed, he said.

He argued that the prosecution relied on speculation to further its case. But that was "a bridge too far" that the evidence did not allow the jury to cross, he said, "because beyond speculating, and inviting you to speculate, the prosecution are not in a position to say that Brian Gorey was unconscious".

Mr Grehan said the defence was not trying to blame Brian Gorey for his own death. It was not trying to raise an issue of self-defence or provocation. The truth perhaps lay somewhere in between what the prosecution advocated and the accidental death the defence could have chosen to advocate, he suggested.

He said there was evidence that might have suggested that some sort of defence amounting to negligence on the part of the Navy might be raised in the case. But there was no such defence available in criminal law, he said.

Mr Grehan said the reality was that everything that the accused man knew about 'Man overboard' drills would have led him to think that there would be a successful rescue operation and that it would have an unnatural, improbable consequence that Brian Gorey would have drowned that night.

Yet, despite that and the fact that Dr Cassidy had said in her evidence that there were cases where people had been revived after being in the water for 60 minutes, Brian Gorey, tragically, did not survive the short time he was in the river.

He said the evidence suggested that the cries that two crewmen heard were those of Sean Lundon calling for help after Brian Gorey went overboard.

Two crewmen, Cadet David Fleming and Able Seaman Tadhg McCarthy initially thought the cries came from the far side of the quays, he said. But he argued, "the person who called for help was clearly Sean Lundon".

Mr Grehan also invited the jury to conclude that contrary to the evidence of the ship's captain, the bar in the recreation room did not cease operating at midnight, but that people continued drinking there until the early hours of the morning.

He said that the evidence suggested that the incident between Sean Lundon and Brian Gorey in the recreation room and then on the after-deck took place in the space of five, or at most 10 minutes.

He said the discrepancies in Mr Lundon's account to gardai were not evidence of him lying, but evidence "of somebody trying to remember what happened in the space of five minutes at 5am in the morning when he had 10 pints on board."

Mr Lundon's action in carrying his crewmate to the after-deck and putting him up on the ledge of the guardrail to get some air was "foolish" and "stupid", he said. His pushing Mr Gorey in the chest when he was on the ledge did show "indifference or recklessness", he said, but it not show intent.

The jury is expected to retire to consider a verdict tomorrow before Mr Justice Carney in the Central Criminal Court.