Accused stabbed wrong man to death, court hears

A Dublin man accused of murder stabbed the wrong man to death, his barrister told the jury at his trial in the Central Criminal Court.

Stephen Delaney (aged 24) of Belclare Grove, Ballymun admits unlawfully killing 37-year-old Wexford man Anthony Cullen at Burmah Caravan Park, Rosslare. However he has pleaded not guilty to his murder on Easter Sunday morning, April 8, 2007.

In his closing speech, Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC said it was the defence’s case that Delaney intended to stab Mr Cullen’s friend, Aidan Duggan, who had provoked him. He asked the jury to find Delaney guilty of manslaughter rather than murder on the defence of provocation.

He said Mr Duggan had been “bashing, thumping and stamping” on Mr Cullen’s head at a party in the caravan where the accused was staying. Mr Duggan later told Delaney to f**k himself and his caravan, triggering his client to lose control of himself, he said.

Shortly after this, Mr Delaney got a knife from the kitchen, went outside and stabbed Mr Cullen three times in the back. There was evidence that it was extremely dark in the caravan park and that it was first thought that Mr Duggan had been stabbed.

Mr O Lideadha said his client must have been planning to stab Mr Duggan, but in the pitch-black dark killed a “totally innocent man” instead. Mr Cullen was leaving the scene when he was stabbed, having been put out of the caravan for severe intoxication.

“There has never been a suggestion that he didn’t intend to kill or cause serious injury,” he said, referring to one of the ingredients necessary for murder. However, he said provocation would reduce the crime to manslaughter.

“The test is whether Stephen Delaney lost control of himself,” he said

“There is a high degree of probability that he lost control of himself as a result of Aidan ‘effing’ and blinding straight at him, after hours of drinking and brutally bashing his own friend,” he said. He suggested that his client would have wondered: “If he does that to his friend, what’s he going to do to me?”

He added that there was no suggestion that he deserved to get stabbed or that Anthony Cullen deserved it either.

He reminded the jury that Mr Duggan testified that Delaney was in a rage after he cursed at him, and that another witness said his client “lost the head because of Aidan”.

He also reminded the jurors that a person, who witnessed the killing, believed she saw him stabbing Mr Duggan, and another witness said it was so dark that she fell over the body.

Mr O Lideadha said it would have been in Delaney’s interests to tell gardaí that Mr Duggan had provoked him, but that he didn’t because he honestly didn’t remember, something he said throughout all his interviews.

He said that from the beginning his client had taken responsibility for his actions and never tried to put the blame on someone else.

“He is actually quite genuinely disgusted with himself,” he said.

“If you were there yourself, it’s obvious what it would have looked like. It is not a good, excusable, forgivable or legal thing,” he said. "It’s an unlawful killing. It’s manslaughter.”

Prosecuting counsel Paul O Higgins SC pointed out that it would just as surely be murder whether Delaney intended to kill or cause serious injury to Mr Duggan or Mr Cullen.

He described Delaney’s story of blanking out at the time of the killing as “self-serving, convenient and put forward in a situation where he knew he had to explain a brutal killing conducted in front of people”.

He said Delaney had a clear recollection of everything that night “up to the moment where things get inconvenient”.

“If he was made suddenly mad by someone, do you believe he wouldn’t remember it?” he asked, telling the jurors to ask themselves if what Mr Duggan did or the mess the Wexford men made of the caravan could cause Delaney to reach “heights of uncontrollable fury” that he was unable to stop himself.

He pointed out that the accused would have to have been so enraged that he had no choice but to kill for the verdict to be manslaughter.

“The mess was unlikely to send Stephen Delaney into such a rage that he’d be put in an uncontrollable mood to kill,” he said.

Mr Justice George Bermingham will now address the jury of seven men and five women.