Deceased taxi driver 'wouldn't back down in a confrontation', wife tells murder trial

By Eoin Reynolds

The wife of a taxi driver who was stabbed to death while working in the early hours has denied that her husband kept a kitchen knife in his car.

The murder trial has previously heard that the accused told gardaí that the deceased pulled a knife on him.

Joseph Hillen (24), of Glendesha Road, Forkhill, Co Armagh has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Martin Mulligan (53) at Carnmore, Balriggan, Dundalk, Co Louth on September 28, 2015.

While he accepts that he inflicted the fatal knife wounds, Mr Hillen told gardaí that he did it to protect himself.

The deceased's widow Grainne Mulligan today told prosecuting counsel Patrick Treacy SC that she met her husband when they were teenagers and they married in 1986 after dating for nine years.

He worked as a coal delivery man and in 2000, for extra money, he started working as a taxi driver. They had two daughters who are now adults.

Her husband, she said, was concerned for his own safety and kept a bar on the floor of the taxi for protection. He also kept a small Swiss Army knife in the car.

Under cross examination, she agreed with defence counsel Brendan Grehan SC that her husband was a "formidable" man who would not back down in any situation.

She was worried when he started working as a taxi driver that he might come to blows with anyone who tried to rob him or cheat him.

She agreed that in a statement to gardaí she said he could be "thick and wouldn't back down in a confrontation". He kept the bar, she said, as a weapon if he needed to use it.

Martin Mulligan

Mr Grehan put it to her that in August of this year, before Mr Hillen told gardaí that the deceased pulled a knife on him, she told gardaí that her husband kept a small kitchen knife in his taxi which he used for picking his teeth.

She accepted that she made another statement about two weeks later in which she said she had been mistaken and that her husband in fact kept the kitchen knife in his coal lorry, not the taxi.

Mr Grehan asked her if she changed her statement because she realised it would be helpful to the accused man as it supported his claim that it was the deceased who produced the knife.

She replied: "No. I didn't realise that. That wouldn't have entered my head."

Under re-examination she told Mr Treacy that the knife she was referring to was a short knife she had previously used for peeling potatoes. She said it would have been about the length of one third of an A4 page.

Earlier the trial heard from Sergeant Michael Kermath of Dundalk Garda Station who told Mr Treacy that he was in Dundalk earlier on the night that Mr Mulligan died when a member of the public gave him the registration number of a Toyota Avensis, driven by the accused, that had been spinning its tyres outside Ridley's nightclub.

When Sgt Kermath and his colleague Garda Damien Fanning saw the car they put on their blue lights and followed but the Avensis did not stop.

Sgt Kermath said it sped erratically and dangerously through the town towards Marsh's Shopping Centre, broke two traffic lights and left the town.

The patrol car followed until it became too dangerous and they believed they would not catch up before the border.

The jury of nine men and three women were then shown CCTV footage of the car spinning its tyres and speeding through the town.

The trial continues in front of the jury and Justice Eileen Creedon.