He abused me from wedding night to death, says woman accused of husband's murder

A mother-of-four accused of murdering her husband in Co Laois two years ago told gardaí that he assaulted her on their wedding night, and the abuse continued throughout their 32-year marriage.

Following her arrest for Patrick Burke's murder in August 2007, Anne Burke (aged 56), of Ballybrittas in Co Laois, said in her Garda statements that she started drinking after their wedding in 1975, so she could stand up to her husband.

She said he had “murdered” her on their wedding night, and that he “clattered” her and called her names during their marriage.

She admitted to gardaí that she hit him over the head with a hammer, but she has denied murdering the 55-year-old at their Ballybrittas home on August 19, 2007.

Her defence team claims she was suffering from a mental disorder at the time and that the case is one of diminished responsibility.

On the opening day of the trial yesterday, the Central Criminal Court heard that the accused started drinking at 10am on the morning in question, following the return of her husband from a nightclub and several hours of arguing.

She told Gardai that it was in the afternoon as her husband was sleeping that she “picked up the hammer and hit him...it was a haze...it was like someone else was doing it”.

Mr Burke sustained 23 head injuries in all.

Describing what she said was a “litany of abuse” from the day she was married, the accused told investigating detectives: “I often had bruises … he said he knew where to hit.”

She also recalled how once when her two young daughters were fighting, he locked one of them into the shed in the dark as punishment, but Mrs Burke said she could do nothing about it.

She said that from the “second” she had got a barring order against her husband “he threatened to shoot all of us, and himself”.

Counsel for the prosecution, Mr Paddy McCarthy SC, described the marriage of Anne and Pat Burke as being wrought with continuous arguments and fights, fuelled by regular and excessive drinking.

He said that the marriage was “by and large not happy because of continuous rows...mostly violent rows brought on by drink”.

He described for the jury of four women and eight men, how gardaí were alerted to the house at around 10.40pm on the night in question, and discovered Pat Burke's body in the bedroom he'd shared with his wife.

Mrs Burke was sitting on the bed with cuts to her wrists and said to them: “I killed him at 4pm today”.

After she was rushed to Portlaoise Hospital for treatment, she told gardaí repeatedly that she wanted to die.

“I killed my husband. I'm a murderer. Send me where they put people who do that” she said to them.

The first witness in the case, Detective Garda Pat Lyne, then told the court how six days before his death, Mr Burke had rang gardaí asking them to come to the house, as his wife had locked herself into the bathroom and he was afraid she would harm herself.

After breaking in the door with a sledgehammer, Detective Lyne discovered Mrs Burke with cuts to her wrists and saw a blood-stained razor blade in the sink.

She was rushed to Portlaoise Hospital where she was admitted to the psychiatric ward, before being discharged two days later at her at her husband's request.

The accused told gardaí afterwards that her husband came to see her and said: “If you don't come out today, you need not bother your arse coming out at all.”

She told them that he left without giving her any money for her bus fare, and the nurses had to pay for her taxi home.

She said when she got home that Wednesday afternoon, her husband told her he was ashamed of her and called her a fat pig.

Mrs Burke said they argued for the next few days until the Saturday when he went to Portlaoise to go drinking with some friends.

She said he rang her at about 3am from a nightclub, telling her that he had been receiving calls from another woman.

After he returned home, she said they rowed until about 9am in the morning when he went to bed, telling her there would be more rows when he woke up.

She said it was around 10am when she started drinking, and that at about 4pm she picked up a hammer that had been in the bedroom, and hit her husband with it.

It was later that night when her youngest son found her in the hallway after she had cut her wrists.

When he brought her into the bedroom to bandage her arms, he saw his father's body on the ground and alerted the emergency services.

The court also heard details of a suicide note she had written to her children.

“I said I wouldn't take anymore...he didn't deserve to die like that. Why did I do it? My head was somewhere else when I did it. I just couldn't take any more arguments … I always loved my kids so much. I tried to be a good mother … please forgive me .... how could I do something like that? I didn't think it was in me,” it read.

The case continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy.