Woman was trying to knock son down, court hears

A woman on trial charged with murdering a man by crushing him between her car and a wall told investigating Gardaí that she meant to knock down his son.

Claire Nolan of Sheephill Green in Blanchardstown has pleaded not guilty to the murder of 66-year-old Michael Duffy in his son’s driveway on Wellview Grove in Blanchardstown.

The taxi driver’s spine was broken in two after being hit by her car and he died of crush injuries to his chest associated with severe, non-survivable internal injuries.

The 25-year-old mother has pleaded guilty to his manslaughter on January 26, 2008 but the prosecution has not accepted this plea.

Detective Garda Bernard Connaughton gave evidence to the Central Criminal Court of interviewing Nolan in the days after her arrest.

He said she told detectives that she had been drinking and taking drugs in the house next door to the home of the victim’s son. She said she was told that this man, Francis Duffy, was tampering with her car and that she went out and fought with him.

She then got into her Nissan Micra and drove into Francis Duffy’s driveway.

“Were you trying to hit Fran?” asked the Gardaí.

She agreed that she was.

“He was after sticking a knife in my hand,” she said. “I wanted to hit him. I wanted to wreck his house as well. The old fella jumped in my way.”

She was asked if she had intended on knocking Francis Duffy down.

“I did intend on knocking him down because he was after giving me the digs, the f***ing w**ker,” she said.

“I was after losing my head. I jumped into the car,” she recalled “I couldn’t break. I couldn’t stop the car. I squashed the man against the wall.”

She said she didn’t mean to cause serious injury to anybody.

Nolan also said that she could not control her temper when drunk.

“My car flew into the garden and I couldn’t stop it,” she said.

She said that although the victim’s son was her intended target, it was not a case of mistaken identity.

“The man just jumped out of nowhere,” she said. “He wasn’t even in the fight,” she added.

“I accelerated to give Fran a fright… I couldn’t stop the car,” she said.

She agreed that the victim’s taxi was blocking her when she got into her Nissan Micra, and so she ‘moved’ it out of her way with her car.

Earlier, Garda John Flood, who examines vehicles involved in crashes, said that he examined the victim’s Toyota Corolla on the day of the killing. He said it was crashed rearwards into a gate pillar across the road from the scene.

“The steering was locked and the handbrake was on. The front wheels were turned to the right and the gear was in neutral,” he said, adding that the doors were also locked.

“I didn’t engage the key… I released the handbrake and the car dropped away from the wall,” he continued.

He said that he and his colleagues then pushed the car with the steering lock still on and that it went in the direction of Francis Duffy’s house.

“When we finished pushing it, it was properly parked a foot from the kerb,” he said.

He said he then turned on the engine and tried to reverse it with the handbrake engaged but could not. He concluded that the car had to have been driven rearwards by another vehicle.

“It had to be mechanical with a fair degree of force,” he said, pointing out that the pillar was dislodged.

Both sides will make their closing speeches on Monday before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of seven men and five women.