Father brought knife into fight with son, court told

A father’s act of bringing a knife into a fight with his son was “highly dangerous” and constituted criminal negligence, a murder trial jury heard at the Central Criminal court today.

“There is no evidence that there was any basis for Thomas Groome to resort to upping the ante by bringing in a lethal weapon,” prosecuting counsel Mr Anthony Sammon SC told the jury of seven men and five women.

Mr Sammon was closing the case for the prosecution in the murder trial of Offaly-man Mr Thomas Groome, aged 47, accused of murdering his son Mr Christopher Groome, aged 19, at Churchview Heights, Edenderry, Co Offaly on November 15 1999.

Mr Groome has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

“The facts of this case are tragic in the extreme - a father accused of murdering his son. It’s awful stuff and your heart is wrenched by the murder assertion,” Mr Sammon told the jury.

He told them their focus ought to centre on “what exactly went on in the caravan” that night.

He said there was evidence of “bickering” going on between the deceased and his partner, Ms Kelly Richardson, aged 23, but also said there was an “underlying tension building up between the two men during the day”.

Mr Sammon said there was undoubtedly a fight between father and son, the consequences of which were “fatal and tragic for Christopher Groome. He died”.

He told the jury that the trial judge had not given them permission to consider provocation in this case and contended that the 19-year-old was stabbed by his father who acted “with the intention to either kill or cause serious harm”.

He reminded the jury of Ms Richardson’s eyewitness testimony: “She said Thomas picked a knife up off the draining board…lifted it up in the air, he brought his hand down very fast and stuck it into Christy,” said Mr Sammon.

“She said that she saw Thomas pick up the knife but that she did not see him stab his son with it,” he added.

Ms Richardson gave evidence that she helped her partner by disentangling him from the head lock his father was holding him in and was then subjected to violence by Thomas Groome herself as she went to Christopher’s rescue, Mr Sammon told the jury.

“So much so that she felt it necessary to bite him and make a grab for his privates,” he added.

He told the jury that Ms Richardson gave evidence to being chased out of the caravan by the accused holding a knife and said “that is open to interpretation that he was terribly fired up and terribly full of violence”, he said.

Closing the case for the defence, Mr Patrick MacEntee SC told the court that Ms Richardson’s evidence was “not as secure as it might seem at first blush”.

He said his client was not a member of any travelling community and had come to Ireland not long before his son Christy, girlfriend Kelly and eight-month-old girl Amber had joined him in Edenderry.

He said Ms Richardson’s evidence that the three people had an uneventful walk home from a local nightclub on Sunday 14 November 1999 didn’t tally with evidence from several neighbours who said they were woken up by screaming from a “verbally violent” group of people that night.

He said Ms Richardson agreed with him when he put it to her that “Christy was capable of considerable violence” also.

He told the jury Ms Richardson’s evidence that the victim was held in a head lock by his father was inconsistent with Dr Marie Cassidy’s assertion that there was no evidence of the deceased having been held in a head lock.

Mr MacEntee said the pattern of injuries on Mr Christopher Groome was not consistent with Ms Richardson’s assertion that there was a single heavy blow to his body by his father.

He pointed to Dr Cassidy’s report that the evidence indicated the victim and his attacker were in very close proximity to each other and that no great force occurred during the stabbing. “The single felling blow is outruled by evidence,” Mr MacEntee said.

He contended that the evidence “does not go anywhere near enough” to prove that Mr Thomas Groome had intended to cause the death or serious injury of his son, Christopher Groome.

Mr Justice Barry White will address the jury tomorrow morning before sending them out to deliberate on a verdict.