I just wanted to scare him, says murder accused
A woman on trial for murdering a 66-year-old taxi driver told gardaí that she was trying to “get” his son with her car, when the deceased jumped in front of her and she ended up “squashing him”.
In her Garda statements, Claire Nolan said she drove her car at 20 miles an hour into the driveway of Francis Duffy's home at Well View Grove in Blanchardstown “just to scare him” after he was seen trying to steal the radio from her new car.
The 23-year-old accused said she could not keep her temper under control when she was drunk and had “lost it” and wanted to hit Fran and wreck his house.
But she had not meant to hurt or kill anyone, she said.
“I went into the garden to get Fran and the man got in the way...I didn't mean to kill anyone... I hadn't got it in my head that I was going to knock Fran down, I just wanted to fly in and scare him...It was an accident, I apologise.”
Ms Nolan, of Sheephill Green in Blanchardstown, has denied murdering Michael Duffy in the driveway of his son's home on January 26, 2008, but has admitted to his manslaughter.
Mr Duffy's spine was broken, his spinal cord severed and part of his heart and liver crushed after he was struck by the car.
In his evidence to the court today, Detective Sergeant Bernard Connaughton said the accused told him she could have taken 10 or 15 sleeping tablets on the day in question, and had spent the evening drinking wine with three friends in the house next door to Francis Duffy's home.
She said she may have also taken cocaine, but was not sure and kept getting blackouts about the night.
Ms Nolan said everyone ran outside when one of her friends said they saw Fran Duffy trying to steal the radio from her new Nissan Micra.
A row broke out, there was “screaming and shouting” and Fran rang his father, Michael Duffy shortly after 1am. Mr Duffy then drove to the scene.
The accused said she had no idea Mr Duffy Snr was there, when she got into her car and drove into the driveway of Fran's house to “hit him” and scare him back into the house.
Detective Connaughton however put it to her that she had been trying to knock Fran down.
“Not his father, just Fran. He was after sticking a knife in my hand the f***ing w***er...that's when I went mental,” she said.
She said she did remember the car hitting Michael Duffy. “I ended up squashing the man, I didn't mean to squash him. I don't know what I meant to do, I couldn't stop... I couldn't break.... and I ended up squashing the man.”
“It was a freak accident, I apologise.”
She repeatedly denied to gardaí that she had set fire to the Nissan Micra, which was found burnt out a short time after the incident.
In his closing speech to the jury however, senior counsel for the prosecution, Mr Patrick Gageby SC said it was “manifestly clear that this was not an accident”.
He said the accused had “tons of motive” and had “acted from revenge”
and that there was elements of planning, premeditation and skilled driving in her actions.
But Ms Nolan's lawyer, Mr Brendan Grehan SC, said that Ms Nolan was “totally out of control...unable to act in any reasonable, rational or logical way...and determined to do something that was grossly dangerous to herself”.
He said her thinking that she could just tip Fran with the car and frighten him was “almost cartoon-like”.
Mr Grehan said she had got a “rush of blood” to the head and acted in a way that was entirely irrational.
“She accepts that she's killed and she's taken a life but she is not a murderer,” he said.
The jury of six men and six women is due to begin deliberations when the case resumes on Monday morning.
