Witness: Brothers were taking turns to beat victim

An eye witness in the case of two Dublin brothers on trial for murder has told the jury one of the men said to the other “we need to finish him off” after they had attacked and beaten her neighbour.

Linda Ward told the Central Criminal Court she witnessed Warren and Jeffrey Dumbrell taking turns to beat Christopher Cawley, as he lay on the ground while his young daughter screamed for help.

Breaking down as she recalled the evening of October 29, 2006, Ms Ward said that she heard screaming and commotion outside her flat at Tyrone Place in Inchicore, at around 8pm.

She ran outside to see the two Dumbrell brothers attacking a man on the stairwell. She said Warren had a sword in his hand, and he and Jeffrey would take turns to strike the man. One of them also stamped on him.

Ms Ward said she only realised it was her neighbour being attacked when she saw his daughter Máiread Cawley screaming for help. She then heard Jeffrey Dumbrell say “you won't do it my sister again” as the attack came to an end.

The witness went to give Mr Cawley assistance and heard Jeffrey shout “we need to finish him off” and Warren replied “no, he had enough.”

The two then walked away.

Ms Ward said Christy was grey in the face and asking for help when she reached him. “The blood was going everywhere, I could see that his breath was going and I tried to give him mouth to mouth.”

She said another neighbour came down the stairs and put a towel over Mr Cawley's five-year-old son who was standing nearby, “so he wouldn't see his father's blood.”

Emergency services arrived minutes later but they failed to resuscitate Mr Cawley. The 33-year-old had been stabbed six times. The fatal injury was a 18cm deep knife wound to his thigh that severed the major blood vessels in his legs.

Warren and Jeffrey Dumbrell, aged 36 and 30, both of Emmet Place in Inchicore, have denied the murder.

Under cross-examination by Warren Dumbrell's defence barrister, Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, Ms Ward agreed that she had said in previous statements Warren had been carrying a long knife.

She agreed it was possible she was incorrect to say it had been a sword.

Another of Christopher Cawley's neighbours, Linda Kavanagh, also told the court she saw two men attacking him, one of whom had a hurley.

She said one of the men shouted at Mr Cawley “this is the end of it, I don't want this coming back on my family, do you f**king hear me?”

The witness said it looked as if the man wasn't going to stop until he got a response from Mr Cawley, whom she said eventually twisted around and just said “yeah.”

The men then walked away while “Christy was bleeding out, he was very close to being dead if not dead at the time.”

James Devlin, a close friend and neighbour of the Cawley family, told the court that he bumped into Mr Cawley on the evening of his killing, on the waste-ground near Tyrone Place.

He said Mr Cawley, who appeared to be lighting a fire, said he was there to fight six men at 8pm.

The court has previously heard that there was an arrangement between Mr Cawley and another of the Dumbrell brothers with whom he had history, to meet on the waste-ground that evening.

The case resumes tomorrow before Mr Justice Paul Butler.