Accused had blood on his clothes, court told

A teenage girl has told a murder trial today that, shortly after the attack, the defendant had blood on his clothes and was saying that he had jumped on the victim’s head.

The 16-year-old, who cannnot be named because of her age, was giving evidence in the trial of the Dublin man charged with murdering a 27-year-old man as he walked to work in Dublin.

Polish native Lukasz Rzeszutko was found unconscious at about 4.30am on October 2, 2010 outside his workplace in the Newtown Industrial Estate in Coolock.

He had multiple skull fractures with severe brain injury, and brain matter was extruding from his nostrils. He died in hospital two days later.

Martin Morgan (aged 20) of Tonlegee Road, Raheny has pleaded not guilty to murdering the young man, but guilty to his manslaughter. However, the DPP did not accept this plea and he is now on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with murder.

Two other Dublin men were also charged with murdering Lukasz Rzeszutko and entered the same pleas as Morgan.

Stephen Byrne (aged 18) of St Donagh’s Road, Donaghmede; and Morgan’s cousin, Edward Byrne (aged 21) of Cabra Park, Cabra had their pleas to manslaughter accepted by the DPP. They will be sentenced at a later date.

The teenaged witness, who was going out with Edward Byrne at the time, gave evidence by live television link today.

She told Shane Costelloe BL, prosecuting, that she was walking home through the industrial estate with the three men and another girl that morning, after they had spent the night drinking beer.

“I seen a man across the road,” she recalled. “Then I seen Stephen run over and hit him a dig in the side of his face, followed by Marto, who hit him a dig.”

She said she then looked at her boyfriend.

“Eddie ran and I screamed his name and I ran over to (her friend) and started crying,” she said.

“The man was screaming and trying to run away,” she testified. “Stephen was on one side and Marto (Martin Morgan) was on the other side. They were just blocking him.”

She said her then boyfriend was trying to stop it, but ‘hit him two digs’ after the man hit him.

She said that the five of them gathered outside the industrial estate afterwards.

“There was blood on Stephen’s jumper, but he said it was (another friend’s) blood. There was blood on Marto’s runners and his clothes,” she said.

“I was screaming: ‘What happened?’ Stephen was saying: ‘I don’t know; we just hit him’,” she said.

“Stephen was (saying) like: ‘He’s dead’. Marto was saying: ‘I don’t think we killed him’,” she continued.

“Stephen was saying he hit him two digs and one boot and Marto said he stood on his head,” she testified. “Stephen was (saying) like: ‘You were jumping up and down on his head’.”

She said that Stephen Byrne then showed them how he claimed Martin Morgan was ‘standing up and down’ on the victim’s head.

“I just remember Marto saying that he jumped on his head,” she said finally, before being cross examined by Paul McDermott SC, defending Martin Morgan.

Mr McDermott suggested to her that Martin Morgan had not said that.

“Were you there?” she asked. “Well, I was there and I know what happened.”

She agreed with him that when the gardaí searched her house, she took some of Edward Byrne’s belongings from her pockets. They included his Temporary Release Form from prison and a social welfare card.

She agreed that he had given them to her to hold in the industrial estate but denied that it was because he was about to get into a fight.

She denied that she was lying to protect him.

She said that she was no-longer in a relationship with him, but had visited him in prison on St Stephen’s Day.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of seven women and five men.