Witnesses testify against murder accused

A number of witnesses have testified at a murder trial that the accused told them he had beaten the victim hours before he was found unconscious in his home.

A Capuchin Brother, a garda and two security guards were giving evidence at the Central Criminal Court in the trial of homeless man Stephen Byrne. Byrne (aged 36) has pleaded not guilty to killing 70-year-old William Traynor on Sunday June 17, 2007 at his house on St Francis Terrace, Bow Street.

Firefighters found Mr Traynor badly beaten that evening, after being called to a small fire in his home. He died two days later in Beaumont Hospital.

Gerard Larkin is a security guard at the Capuchin Day Centre on Bow Street, which provided free meals to both men twice a day for a number of years. He said that on Monday morning June 18, 2007, the accused told him about the incident the day before.

“He said he was afraid to walk up the road because there’d be a guard outside Willie’s,” he said. “He said he battered him and gave him an awful hiding and tried to set him on fire, that Willie had blown something in his face.”

Centre director Brother Kevin Crowley told the court that Mr Byrne also spoke to him that morning.

“He said that as he was passing his house, William fired some sort of powder at him and he gave him a few belts,” he said.

Brother Kevin had visited Mr Traynor in hospital the evening before, where he had difficulty in recognising his “great friend” due to the severity of his injuries.

He agreed with Mr Erwin MillArden SC, defending, that Mr Traynor had a drink problem and was somewhat odd.

“But he was a lovable man, loved by the people, a great character, terribly kind and would never do harm to people,” he added. He said that he sometimes washed the street outside his house with a hose.

The Brother agreed that Stephen Byrne had a drug and alcohol problem, but said he had never seen him drunk.

Another security guard at the centre, John McMahon, said that the accused spoke to him at the door of the day centre that Monday morning.

“He told me he’d hit Willie a few belts. He said there was a canister of something or other,” he said. “I told him it was obviously more serious than he thought, that he was in intensive care.”

Mr McMahon described Mr Traynor as “quite eccentric” and agreed that “loner” would be another fair description of him.

“He was fond of his drink. He would keep himself to himself very much,” he said of the victim, who lived in the house opposite the centre all his life.

He agreed that Mr Traynor had a crutch, but was not sure he used it as a walking aid.

“He had a magnet on the end of it for picking up coins,” he explained. “He used to point it at me as if it were a gun.”

He explained that Mr Traynor’s house, which had no electricity, was in a bad state with gas bottles and empty buckets strewn around.

“He was chipping the plaster off the walls. He told people he was bringing it back to the brick,” he said.

The jury also heard from doctors at Beaumont Hospital where Mr Traynor died.

They said no treatment of any kind could have saved him as his brain was dead. Scans showed extensive swelling of the brain, which was being pushed against the extensively-fractured skull.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven women and five men.