Man accused of caravan park murder

A 24-year-old Dublin man has gone on trial for the murder of a Wexford man in a Rosslare caravan park on Easter Sunday morning two years ago.

Stephen Delaney of Belcare Grove, Ballymun has pleaded not guilty to murdering 37-year-old Anthony Cullen on April 8, 2007 but admits unlawfully killing him at Burmah Caravan Park in the seaside town.

Paul O Higgins SC, prosecuting, described the background to the case as somewhat squalid and debauched, involving a lot of drinking. He told the jury of seven men and five women that Mr Cullen had been drinking for most of the day in Wexford when he was invited to a mobile home in Rosslare.

He said Stephen Delaney was in the caravan with some friends.

The victim was extremely drunk and was falling around and also got into a number of small fights, he said. Mr Cullen soiled himself and was thrown out of the caravan and remained outside in a drunken state for some time.

Mr O’Higgins said it was the state’s case that as he was leaving the caravan park, Stephen Delaney armed himself with a knife and pursued him, stabbing him three times in the back, each time piercing a lung.

He said the jury would have to decide if the accused was guilty of murder or manslaughter by getting inside his mind and deciding if he had full intent to kill or seriously injure.

Mr Cullen’s best friend, Aidan Duggan, told the court they and some other people began drinking on The Rocks in Wexford on Easter Saturday morning. They drank all day and got the 9pm train to Rosslare.

He said he and Mr Cullen were as drunk as anyone could be and they also took ecstasy. He had bought 24 bottles of Stella Artois, Mr Cullen had bought 20 cans of foreign beer. They had more on the train, another 20 cans of foreign beer and there were spirits in the mobile home.

He said that sometime after Mr Cullen, whom he called Kojak, was put outside for soiling himself, he went out to see how he was. “I couldn’t get up for a while,” he recalled.

“I could see Kojak on the ground outside the door. Stephen Delaney was standing in the doorway. They were outside laughing at him,” he said. “I picked him up and said to Stephen Delaney: ‘F**k off, that’s not the way we do it here.’ He went mad.”

Mr Duggan later agreed that he had also told Mr Delaney to f**k himself and his caravan before sticking up his fingers at him. He said Mr Delaney had asked him to repeat what he had said.

He said that he and Mr Cullen then started walking up a lane away from the caravan when he heard Mr Delaney saying: “Get the blades. Get the blades”.

He said he was walking faster than his friend so was ahead of him when he heard footsteps.

“When I came back around the corner, he was on the ground,” he said of the victim. “I picked him up by the head and tried to keep the man alive.” An ambulance was then called.

Mr Duggan also accepted that he had fought with Mr Cullen that night, punching him, kicking his head ‘like a football’ and stamping on his head a few times. He accepted that the stamping was so strong that the caravan vibrated, causing someone in bed in the next room to come out to see what was happening.

“He hit me a box. I hit him back. Then we hugged each other. Then everything was back to normal,” he said.

He agreed he had told gardaí they would often have such fights as a result of a family incident.

“We fixed it up years ago,” he said. “He slapped my sister’s head off the path. We fought over it and then we let the past be the past.”

The trial before Mr Justice George Bermingham and a jury is expected to last two weeks.