Ex-boxing champ's death: Accused guilty of manslaughter

A 35-year-old Dublin man has been found not guilty of murder, but guilty of the manslaughter of a former All Ireland boxing champion turned drug-dealer and addict.

The Central Criminal Court jury of five men and seven women took just over seven hours to reach its majority verdict of 11 to 1

Anthony Burke of Clancarty Road, Donnycarney in Dublin had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Joseph Sutcliffe (aged 32) in Fatima Mansions, Rialto in Dublin’s inner city. The trial, which lasted seven days, heard that the father of three died as a result of blood loss from a single stab wound to the abdomen.

Throughout the trial, the accused sat with his head bowed, a position mirrored in videotapes of his interviews with gardaí. Mr Burke’s statements and interview memos were read to the jury, which was also shown him shaking, crying and apologising in the footage.

In his official statement to detectives a week after Mr Sutcliffe’s death, the suspect said he had visited Fatima Mansions with friends, May and Anthony "Chiller" Cahill, on Saturday night October 12.

"I barely get out because I look after my father at home," he said, adding that he was very drunk, having spent the evening in the pub.

While at the council housing complex, Mr Burke went into one of the flats to break up a fight involving Mr Cahill. The accused hit "Chiller’s" opponent, now known to be Joe Sutcliffe, "two boxes on the chin". Before Mr Burke left, he said, this man threatened him, "You’re going to get it. You’re getting it off me".

He also noticed a man with a knife. This man, identified later as Seán Buckley, was pushing Mr Sutcliffe up onto a sofa.

After this brawl, the suspect said he and May’s sister, Ellen Cahill, were standing outside her flat, when Mr Buckley approached him with a warning: "You’re going to get it". Mr Buckley said he had received a text message saying as much, and he handed Ms Cahill a knife. Mr Burke admitted taking this weapon from Ellen for his "own protection".

A minute later, the suspect said, he went to break up another fight, this time outside, between "Chiller" and a man in a hoodie. "I didn’t know who it was ‘til I pulled them apart… I just turned around and stuck him with the knife I had in my hand," he said of Mr Sutcliffe. "I done him because I thought he was going to do me… I didn’t mean to stick him bad. I just meant to nick him, so he’d go home and leave me alone," he added.

Afterwards, Mr Burke said, he turned around, dropped the knife and walked away. It was not until the next morning that he learned a man had died. That evening, he went to his local garda station to say he was involved, but it was a week before he admitted going to the fight, armed with a knife, and stabbing Mr Sutcliffe.

"I have to live with this… I’m really sorry about this," Mr Burke cried during the interviews. He spoke of how the whole affair was going to kill his elderly father, for whom he cared full-time. On his day in the witness box, the garda in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector Gabriel O’Gara, admitted Mr Burke seemed genuinely remorseful on the day of his arrest.

A number of Fatima residents gave evidence during this trial, one of whom was Natasha Gavin, who told gardaí she was not sorry Mr Sutcliffe was dead. He had assaulted her, she testified, and "said if I said anything to the guards, he’d storm the house, rape me, rape my niece and my ma… I knew he had broken his own kids’ arms," she told the court.

Ms Gavin said that the deceased, who was one of 11 children, used to be out "selling gear" until six in the morning, a statement backed up by other witnesses.

Acquaintances testified that the Drimnagh native had taken cocaine, heroine and large amounts of alcohol in the hours before he died. Medical staff at St James’ hospital were warned that he might have hepatitis C and be HIV positive.

The State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, gave her post-mortem findings to the court earlier this week. She said she found "massive haemorrhage behind the lining of the abdomen around the right kidney" and the source of the bleeding was a main artery.

Apart from the stab wound, which led to this blood loss, Dr Cassidy also found abnormalities in Mr Sutcliffe’s heart and lungs, not resulting from violence. She discovered "abnormality of heart arteries, normally seen in much older people. The right coronary artery was narrowed to a pin-hole," she said.

The left one was reduced by 50%, she said, and such clogging of both vessels would have made resuscitation more difficult. Mr Sutcliffe’s liver was also badly damaged from alcohol.

The pathologist found no evidence of defensive injuries to his arms and admitted only moderate force would have been necessary to inflict the injury. She concluded that the cause of Mr Sutcliffe’s death was "haemorrhage and shock due to a stab wound to the abdomen".

In her closing speech, Mary Ellen Ring, SC for the State, said: "If there was a threat, it was time to leave, get a taxi and go home while the threat was otherwise engaged". Instead, she said, Mr Burke "voluntarily went over to the fight with the knife… What does that say about his intention?"

SC for the Defence, Fergal Kavanagh, told the jury that much of "the evidence comes from junkies or others who are damaged".

He said the only evidence to be considered then was that of Anthony Burke. Mr Kavanagh advanced three grounds for defence: that Mr Burke did not intend to kill or seriously injure Mr Sutcliffe; that the injury, if actually caused by the accused, was not the result of Mr Sutcliffe’s death; and that Mr Burke acted in self defence, believing he was using no more force than necessary to escape. Mr Kavanagh sited a garda statement from Vincent McNally, who said his brother, Wayne, also admitted to stabbing Mr Sutcliffe.

After the verdict was read out yesterday, Detective Inspector Gabriel O’Gara told the court that Mr Burke had two previous convictions, of larceny in 1986 and burglary in 1988, for which he was sentenced to12 days in prison.

Addressing the jury, Mr Justice Paul Carney said he had been profoundly disturbed by this case, and that "my normal defence mechanisms have not worked". He spoke of the picture painted of Fatima Mansions as "a place coming to life at midnight with hundreds of people," buying drugs. He was disturbed by the drug-related deaths of many potential witnesses in the time it had taken the case to come to court. He mentioned the female witnesses, who worked as prostitutes on Baggot Steet and Parkgate Street to feed their heroin and cocaine addictions at Fatima. He referred to the men, who slept by day and came alive at night to use hard drugs and drink vodka and beer.

Mr Justice Carney thanked the jurors and excused them from jury service for the rest of their lives. He remanded Anthony Burke on continuing bail for sentence on March 14 next.