Witness 'not sorry murder victim was killed'
A young Dublin woman told a murder trial today that the deceased had threatened to rape her, her niece and her mother and admitted she said she was not sorry he was dead.
Natasha Gavin was giving evidence to the Central Criminal Court in the trial of a man accused of the murder of Joseph Sutcliffe (aged 32) in Rialto in Dublin’s south inner city.
Anthony Burke (aged 34) of Clancarty Road, Donnycarney, Dublin, has denied murdering the father of three on October 13, 2002, at the Fatima Mansions flat complex
Ms Gavin told the jury she had not seen the deceased for a number of days before he died, as they had a falling out. They had both been guests of a couple and their three children in a two-bedroom flat in the complex.
Ms Gavin was sleeping on one couch, and Mr Sutcliffe on another. She admitted that the deceased had "tried it on" with her at least once after they would return to the flat at about six o’clock in the morning.
She would be out with Mr Sutcliffe until that time while he was "selling gear". She fell out with the former All-Ireland boxing champion when he punched her.
The witness testified that after this her mother took a knife from her kitchen and confronted Mr Sutcliffe about the assault. Ms Gavin said she was worried that if her mother showed him the knife he would stick it in her.
"I knew he had broken his own kids’ arms," she said. Her mother wanted Ms Gavin to report the assault to the gardaí but "he said if I said anything to the guards, he’d storm the house, rape me, rape my niece and my ma", the witness explained.
She said she was so afraid to go out that "if I wanted to go to the shop, my auntie’s boyfriend had to come with me". During the murder investigation, Ms Gavin told gardaí that the deceased always had at least €1,000 in his wallet.
A woman who spent Mr Sutcliffe’s last day with him also gave evidence to the court. Twent-nine-year-old Aisling McHugh was homeless at the time but Fatima Mansions was "where I’d hang around".
She told the court that she had spent most of the day with Mr Sutcliffe, Paul Mangan and Noel Cahill in Mr Cahill’s flat. She had left for a couple of hours to work as a prostitute on Baggot Street, and when she returned the three men were very drunk and sleepy.
She nodded off too. The witness said that a man came in to warn Mr Sutcliffe to escape through the back window as there was going to be a fight.
"Seán Buckley came in the front door and tried to wake up Joey, but Joseph was after having an awful lot to drink. He was very groggy," she explained. Despite the warning, Mr Sutcliffe insisted on staying, she said.
Ms McHugh said more people arrived and an argument broke out. "Joe was still dazed because he was just after waking up. He got a punch to the face. That woke him up a bit…There were more punches.
"I was shouting to leave him alone," she recalled. "He asked why he was being hit. Someone shouted: ‘You don’t hit my nephew. You don’t call my nephew a bastard.' Joe said he didn’t hit his nephew," said Ms McHugh.
The witness explained that it was not until the punches caused Mr Sutcliffe to fall on Noel Cahill that Mr Cahill woke. He was annoyed, she said, and asked everyone to leave. When they went outside, an argument broke out between Ms McHugh and another woman, during which time she lost sight of Mr Sutcliffe.
When she eventually found him "he started crouching…Next of all he collapsed. I took off my jacket and put it over him.
"There was blood coming out of his nose. He lifted up his top and there was a tiny wound, but it wasn’t bleeding." Ms McHugh became emotional as she recalled accompanying her friend in the ambulance.
When asked about a knife, she said: "There was a knife in the flat. It was always there." She was shown a knife in court and said it looked like the one kept in Mr Cahill’s flat for the purpose of cutting deals.
She said she saw Mr Buckley with a knife in the flat, but insisted he did not have it when he came in the door.
Sergeant Charlie McConalogue also gave evidence to the court. He was in Clontarf Garda Station at 7.25pm on October 13, 2002, when the accused, Anthony Burke, came in and asked to speak to a detective.
He told the sergeant that the previous night he had intervened in a fight between his cousin and another man in Fatima Mansions.
That morning, he learned that someone had died. Sergeant McConalogue told Mr Burke that there were no detectives there, but that he would contact those in charge of the investigation at Kevin Street.
The witness said Mr Burke waited patiently in the foyer while two detectives made their way from Kevin Street Station. He said he then showed the three men to a room where they could speak privately.
The trial before Mr Justice Paul Carney and a jury of five men and seven women will continue today.
