Defence in Kerry murder trial accuses prosecution of 'racist talk of honour killing'
The late Thomas Dooley. The jury was told today: 'However you decide, Siobhán Dooley will be without a husband, the Dooley children will be without a father.' Picture via Facebook
The prosecution in the Tralee cemetery murder trial was accused by a defence lawyer of employing “racist talk of honour killing, talk of medieval violence”, which had no place in the case.
Tom Creed, senior counsel for Thomas Dooley Sr, said in his closing speech: “This is a tragic case. There are no winners in this case. However you decide, Siobhán Dooley will be without a husband, the Dooley children will be without a father. Your decision has to be based on evidence and viewed dispassionately.
“What I do take exception to in terms of the prosecution is this kind of dog whistle rhetoric, describing this as an honour killing. The prosecution presents Patrick Dooley as an unreconstructed liar, that you cannot believe anything he says. Except one thing — that this was based on a fracture between the families.
“Examine this dog whistle rhetoric — where did this come from? Siobhán Dooley said there was no falling out, ‘we just did not speak, there was never words about it’.
“The last witness in the case, Detective Sergeant Ernie Henderson said Thomas Dooley Jr was happily married for six months when this event occurred.
“This kind of racist talk of honour killing, talk of medieval violence, it has no place,” Mr Creed said.
The defence senior counsel said the prosecution was using elements of circumstantial evidence and saying they were indicative of a plan, for instance the fact that a van from Tralee travelled to the carpark neighbouring a halting site in Cork and that another van had been parked there 20 minutes earlier.
Mr Creed said that to conclude that this was part of a plan would be speculation by the jury. “There is a serious dichotomy at the centre of this case — on the one hand (prosecution says) it is all about planning, on the other hand it is all about panic.”
Mr Creed queried why a man who was close enough to say that he heard Patrick Dooley saying “Come on lads” did not see any weapons. “Why did he not see weapons? This is what troubles me deeply about this case. It is very important to drill down from a position of doubt. It is not a simple case, not as simple as the prosecution is portraying,” Mr Creed said.
Vincent Heneghan senior counsel for Thomas Dooley Jr emphasised timing of arrivals and departure in and around the cemetery by the various parties and said to the jury: “They (prosecution) never went into the minutiae of what happened in the graveyard, the seconds that elapsed, that is what I am going to beseech you to do.”
Mr Heneghan urged them to view the CCTV of the teenager and his client going to the side of the van and the prosecution contention that some kind of weapon was passed between them but he warned: “That is the prosecution inviting you to speculate…
"Looked at closely, you cannot see a weapon, you cannot see what is passed, you cannot see anything at all. That is speculation. You are not allowed to do that. And the prosecution, I respectfully say, should know better.”
Mr Heneghan then went through the evidence of timing of arrivals on the CCTV and reminded the jury that the distance was 105 metres from the cemetery entrance to where the killing took place so that Thomas Dooley Jr and the teenager had to cover that distance in and out totalling 210 metres and that their total time in the graveyard was 77 seconds.
“Make it up (the time needed), assault Siobhán Dooley and be involved in the murder of Thomas Dooley, produce a weapon, conceal it on the way out and dispose of it… You have to decide this case on the evidence, just the evidence without speculating.”
He said Siobhán Dooley’s only evidence against Thomas Dooley Jr was: “I just saw (him) coming in, in the corner of my eye, with a weapon in his hand.” Mr Heneghan said this evidence was from a witness who identified another man who was later shown to have been in Cork at the relevant time.
Getting back to CCTV timings, Mr Heneghan concluded: “The time does not exist for Thomas Dooley Jr to attack her and kill Thomas Dooley. He did not attack anybody because he did not have the time.”
He said he did not know how the droplet of blood of the deceased got on to the heel of his client’s shoe but he said that another drop of the dead man’s blood was found on a leaf some distance from the scene. He said they could not speculate and added: “There is lots of reasonable doubt when it comes to Thomas Dooley Jr.”
Jane Hyland, defence senior counsel for the teenager, said: “It is almost inconceivable this could happen to a man and that his wife and children would witness these things happen. It is absolutely understandable for you to say, I don’t care who did what, this man was cut down in front of his children and his wife. It is entirely human for you to feel like that.”
She asked them to consider that long after this trial they might be at home wondering about the teenager now accused of murder: “Did I do the right thing with that young fella? If you have that doubt I am asking you to acquit.”
Ms Hyland said there were specific reasons the jury should have reasonable doubts and that they could not convict him beyond reasonable doubt.
In a detailed breaking down of time of entrance and exit to the cemetery by various parties, Ms Hyland suggested that her client would have had to complete a distance of 75 to 80 metres in eight seconds to tally with the prosecution case and that his speed would have had to be close to the speed of the world’s fastest runner, Usain Bolt.
Ms Hyland said that the jury did not have to conclude that the dead man’s widow, Siobhán was lying but suggested they could conclude she was mistaken in her evidence about seeing the teenager. Furthermore, she reminded the jury that when it was put to Siobhán in cross-examination that she never saw the teenager strike her husband, she agreed.
“The prosecution say to you, there is a droplet of the deceased man’s blood on the bottom right leg of my client’s pants and this shows incontrovertibly that he participated in killing of the deceased man,” Ms Hyland said.
Challenging this, Ms Hyland said a droplet would have been airborne and could have travelled a number of feet, not least given the evidence that blood was squirting from the deceased man’s femoral artery.
As for leaving the graveyard afterwards, Ms Hyland said: “He is running out with the group — this is not an unreasonable reaction where there is this level of carnage, where there is this amount of blood.”
Ray Boland, senior counsel for Michael, opened with the comment that gardaí hate testimony, compared to forensic or CCTV evidence, as he said that testimony came from people with their human fallibilities and could change in the witness box where the physical evidence did not change.
“At the centre of the prosecution case against Michael Dooley there is only one bit of evidence, that is testimony, the testimony of Siobhán Dooley and there has to be a doubt about Siobhán Dooley’s testimony,” Mr Boland said.
He then went on to say that she named another Dooley as being involved in the killing but that he was seen on CCTV at two locations in and around Cork City at the time of the funeral, and that she then said she was mistaken and that it was Daniel.
Mr Boland said that not alone had she said that she had seen this man — mistakenly identified — as being involved in the killing, she had, Mr Boland said: “given him a speaking part, saying words along the lines of, ‘Push up there boy, leave me at him’.”
He added that we should thank God for CCTV proving that the mistakenly identified man was in Cork at the time. Mr Boland added: “This is how serious this is — if it was the 1880s he would have been hanged when she was changing her mind.”
“Looking at the evidence of Siobhán Dooley she does not have Michael attack her husband. She says she saw Michael behind him with a weapon. I suggest to you he never had a weapon. The prosecution are asking you to rely on that fleeting glance, there is no other evidence.
"To say he is in on this travelling down in a van and back in a van is neither here nor there. He went to the funeral to pay his respects. It is a pity Michael went to the funeral but it is not a crime,” Mr Boland said.
The murder trial is taking place before Ms Justice Ring and a jury of two women and 12 men (including two substitute jurors). All six of the accused who are on trial deny the charge of murdering 43-year-old Tom Dooley from Hazelwood Drive, Killarney, at New Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, on October 5, 2022.
Five defendants in the case — all with the surname Dooley — Patrick, 36, from Arbutus Grove, Killarney; Thomas Sr., 43, from the halting site, Carrigrohane Road; Thomas Jr., 21, from the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork; Michael, 29, of the halting site, Carrigrohane, Cork, and Daniel, 42, of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, County Kerry, are on trial, as is the sixth defendant who is a teenager.
Only 21-year-old Thomas Dooley Jr. faces the second charge that he intentionally or recklessly caused serious harm to Siobhán Dooley, the wife of the deceased man. He also denies this count.”
The case resumes on Wednesday, July 10.
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