Murder accused says fatal stabbing was accidental

A 27-year-old Dublin man accused of fatally stabbing a Chinese student told a murder trial jury today he definitely did not stab anyone deliberately.

Derek Wade with an address in Church Avenue, Rialto, denies murdering Zhi Song (aged 23) at Reuben Avenue, South Circular Road, Dublin on June 29, 2005. He also denies attempting to rob the purse of Xiau Wen Zhou on the same occasion.

In defence evidence at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin Wade said he went into the house In Reuben Avenue "to take things".

Wade told his counsel Mr Michael O'Higgins SC that he only discovered someone had died when he heard it on the radio three or four hours later. He said when he entered the house he had left the front door and garden gate open so he could get away quickly if anyone woke up.

He told Mr O'Higgins he picked up a meat cleaver and a knife in the kitchen "to frighten anyone off so I could get out of the place."

He said "I am sorry now that I picked them up. I would never have used them."

Wade said he went upstairs after searching the downstairs rooms. He didn't go into the first bedroom he came to because he didn't think he could search the room without waking up the occupant.

The second bedroom was bigger. He could see there were things on a shelf and started to search them.

"The person woke up. I didn't know if it was a man or a woman. I said Shh; I'm not going to hurt you. All I want is your purse."

When she asked him to leave so she could put some clothes on Wade said he "turned his back and he walked away." He heard a noise outside and opened the door to see someone in the hall outside.

"I bumped into someone and I dropped everything and I ran out down the stairs." He said he heard "just little bits of noise."

He was holding the knife, the meat cleaver and a biscuit tin and the main noise was the biscuit tin falling and its contents scattering over the floor.

"I dropped everything,'' he said.

Wade said he "just ran" after leaving the house.

Cross examined by Mr George Birmingham SC, prosecuting, Wade said that he didn't remember how he was holding the knife.

"I know how I was holding it when I was going up the stairs but then I picked up more things when I was in the room. There were so many things in my hand."

He said: "It was just brushing into somebody. There was no stabbing motion. It was just a brushing motion into somebody."

Mr Birmingham suggested it was impossible for anyone to believe that Wade wouldn't know he had stuck his knife into someone's body to a depth of 16cms.

Mr Birmingham asked him why he had said that the deceased's girlfriend Xiau Wen Zhou was mistaken when she picked him out of an identity parade.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Barry White and the jury of six men and five women.