Motorist tells trial he did not see murder accused with a weapon as he drove him away

On Friday, the driver described how Tyler Jackson got into his car asked him to drive up the road

Tyler Jackson (pictured) is accused of murdering 24-year-old Conor Quinn at Bridge Street, Mallow, County Cork, on July 12, 2018.

A motorist told the Mallow murder trial on Friday that moments after the alleged stabbing, a man got into the front passenger seat of his car and asked him to drive up the road.

Another witness described seeing the accused man — Tyler (Tiggy) Jackson — getting into the sports model blue Ford Focus. The driver of that car, Mark McCarthy, testified: “I was actually stopped on the bridge. I saw a body run in front of the car and asked me to drive up the road. He said just drive up the road. I kind of panicked. I froze really. I just drove.” 

Mr McCarthy said traffic started moving and he drove up the road. Prosecution senior counsel, Ray Boland, asked him if there was any conversation with this man, and he replied: “Not really. I said, where, and he said Ballydaheen.” Mr McCarthy said he was going in that direction anyway. 

“He said, stop. We were outside Daly’s Bar. He got out. He ran across the road. At that stage I was a bit shook,” Mr McCarthy said.

The witness who is in his 30s had been at the gym that evening in July five years ago and was driving home through Mallow at around 8pm. He said the passenger had been hanging on to the door and looking into the rearview mirror during the brief journey.

Senior counsel Brian McInerney, who represents the accused man Tyler Jackson, put it to the witness that the man who got into his car half ran and half stumbled across the road in front of his car and later thanked him when he was getting out of the car. 

“You kind of knew him from seeing him around the town… He never threatened you,” Mr McInerney said. The witness agreed to all of these suggestions. “He did not have a weapon,” the barrister said. The witness replied: “I saw none.” 

Another motorist driving on Bridge Street at around 8pm that evening, Liam Lynch, told gardaí in a written statement read to the judge and jury that he saw a man jumping out of a black Audi and running across the road towards a man outside Cremin’s cycle shop. 

Mr Lynch said: “The guy at Cremin’s side seemed to be defending himself. He didn’t have two seconds to defend himself.” 

Tyler Jackson of Ballydaheen West, Mallow, Co. Cork, denies the charge of murdering 24-year-old Conor Quinn at Bridge Street, Mallow, County Cork, on July 12, 2018. The trial before Ms Justice Eileen Creedon and the jury of eight men and four women resumes on Monday, October 9.

Earlier proceedings

Earlier today, the jury was told that a Mallow teenager allegedly told gardaí investigating the fatal stabbing of a 24-year-old man in the town: “I saw Tiggy running. I saw a knife in his hand.”

But the defence challenged this statement saying, for instance, that it contained words which she would never use, such as a reference in the statement to the knife being “seven or eight inches” long.

Cross-examined about this statement which was read to the jury at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Christina Kearney, who is now 21, said of the statement which she signed more than five years ago: “I cannot recall him running.” Asked about other parts of her statement, she replied to many of the questions that she could not recall.

The defendant’s senior counsel Brian McInerney repeated on Friday: “Tyler Jackson did not have a knife.” 

Prosecution senior counsel, Ray Boland, read from the statement of Christina Kearney made at her home, in the presence of her parents, to Detective Garda Seán Buckley. Mr Boland told the jury of eight men and four women that they should treat the statement as they would if it was evidence given in the witness box.

In this statement, Christina Kearney is quoted as saying that she was walking towards Bridge Street with two friends at around 8pm on July 12, 2018, when Tiggy passed them out, walking towards town, and that he was someone she knew to talk to.

Her statement said: “We walked over the bridge, waiting at the traffic lights. I saw Tiggy sprinting against us. Another lady said, ‘what was he in such a hurry for?’. 

The statement added:

When I saw Tiggy running I saw a knife in his hand — in his left hand. A kitchen knife.

Mr Boland read on in the statement saying that Tiggy got into a kind of sports model Ford Focus, but she did not know whose car it was. “He jumped into the front passenger side of the car,” she said.

Christina Kearney and her two friends then walked towards Cremin’s cycle shop and saw a man holding his chest and another person holding him up. “The fella holding his chest slid down the wall and he fell to his knees,” she said.

The statement went on to say: “When I saw Tiggy with the knife it was seven or eight inches long. He was holding it with the handle in his hand and the blade facing back.” 

Phrasing

Cross-examining, defence senior counsel Brian McInerney said that people the witness’s age did not speak in terms of inches and they would talk in terms of metric measures like metres and kilos and so forth. 

Ms Kearney said: “I would never use that phrase.” Mr McInerney clarified: “The phrase being it was about seven or eight inches long.” Ms Kearney said: “I didn’t use them words.” 

She also said of Tiggy: “I can’t recall him running.” Asked by Mr Boland: “You don’t use inches and feet, do you use centimetres and metres?” She replied that she did not.

Det. Garda Buckley said he wrote down in the statement the words used by the witness and that her parents were present as she was 16 at the time.

The trial before Ms Justice Eileen Creedon and the jury continues.