Accused found guilty of killing drug dealer

A man accused of murdering a 28-year-old whose body was found in the boot of his own car in an isolated Dublin laneway, has been cleared of the murder but has been found guilty of manslaughter.

Twenty-seven-year-old Stephen Penrose, of no fixed abode, had denied murdering David Sharkey in Navan in May of last year.

He admitted manslaughter, but the DPP rejected the plea. The murder trial lasted seven days at the Central Criminal Court.

In his own evidence to the trial, Penrose told the jury that he had only planned to rob heroin from Mr Sharkey, as he had become addicted to the drug following the death of his baby girl.

He said the plan went wrong after Mr Sharkey produced a knife and demanded his drugs back when Penrose failed to pay him.

He stabbed Mr Sharkey 13 times on the stairwell of an apartment at Parkview, Blackcastle in Navan on the evening of May 17, 2009. The 18cm blade went through Mr Sharkey's shoulder-blade, and also penetrated his heart, stomach and liver.

Penrose told the jury that heroin had taken over his life and he was “using it all day every day”at the time of the killing. He was involved in a “drugs relationship” with a woman and had been staying with her at the apartment in Parkview.

Penrose said it was her idea to get Mr Sharkey to come to the apartment with an ounce of heroin, and then rob the drugs once they had been handed over. Penrose was to produce the knife to convince Mr Sharkey to let him run off.

The jury was shown CCTV footage of the accused buying the knife in Tescos in Navan on the afternoon in question. While in the store, he he received a text saying Mr Sharkey was ready to do the deal. Penrose replied saying “get him to wait till six o'clock...den I be ready for him.”

Prosecuting lawyer, Mr Paul Green SC, told the jury that this was “highly suggestive” of Penrose's frame of mind at the time, and “cast a shadow over his unsustainable position that this was all a terrible mistake”.

In his account, Penrose said that after Mr Sharkey arrived at the apartment and the heroin was handed over, he tried to get out the door saying he had to get money from his car.

But Mr Sharkey took out a knife and came towards him swiping it at his face. Penrose produced his own knife and stabbed Mr Sharkey. He described a lot of pushing and shoving and said the whole thing was “pure panic”.

Afterwards, Penrose cleaned up the scene with a towel and bleach, “stuck” the body in the boot of the dead man's BMW and drove to Dunsink Lane in Finglas, where he was planning on burning everything.

Mr Green suggested to the jury that he “engaged in fairly clinical behaviour” and that these were not the actions of someone who was panicking.

Penrose was followed by gardaí who happened to be on patrol in the lane and ended up abandoning the car in a halting site, before fleeing the scene.

Penrose's defence lawyer, Mr Patrick Marrinnan SC, drew the jury's attention to the fact that the killing took place in broad daylight, in an apartment next to busy shops that were covered with CCTV cameras.

He said the notion that it was planned and premeditated was “illogical and defies common sense”.

After nearly six hours of deliberating spread over two days, the jury acquitted Penrose of murder by a majority 10/2 verdict.

Mr Justice Paul Carney thanked the six men and six women and exempted them from jury duty for the rest of their lives.

Penrose is due to be sentenced for manslaughter on July 5.