Higgins accused 'admitted stabbing to gardaí'

The accused also denies robbing the victim’s mobile phone, a red Nokia 3310, and a sum of cash on October 12, 2002.

Detective Inspector Gerald Feeney of Coolock Garda Station told the jury of eight men and four women that the accused in the company of his father and mother voluntarily gave a statement regarding the fatal stabbing on October 14, 2002.

In his statement to gardaí, the accused said: "There was three of us and I did the stabbing with the steak knife."

"I got the knife out of my own house. I didn’t get the phone. Myself and Michael Maher got the wallet. There was about €115 in it. We took é50 each and spent it on smokes and drinks that night," the accused said.

In the hours leading up to Mr Higgins’ fatal stabbing, the accused told gardaí that he went with Anthony Whelan and Michael Maher to an off-licence. "I had six cans and we smoked a joint" behind St Monica’s youth centre in Edenmore, he said.

He told gardaí: "I was drunk at that stage". The three were there until 6pm, the accused told gardaí.

After they were thrown out of a fast food joint in the UCI complex at 9.30pm, the trio got into an altercation with some other boys. The accused told gardaí that they took a bag with a number of Dutch Gold cans of lager.

"I wanted to get my mates to take them on again. They wouldn’t come back. I went into my house and got out two knives.

"I put the knives in the back pocket of my jeans and pulled my jumper over," the accused told gardaí.

The accused said he gave Michael Maher "one of the knives". The trio then took a piece of white piping from a skip and broke it in two.

When Michael Maher, Anthony Whelan and the accused were heading back towards the UCI they allegedly came across Alan Higgins, who was going to catch his bus home.

"A bloke came up the path towards us. It was dark. He bumped into me. When I turned he was looking at me. I called the bloke a dope. The other guy said nothing. As he turned to walk away, we jumped him.

"The two of us fell to the ground. He was on top of me. I couldn’t get him off me. He was bigger than me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the knife. I stuck him with the knife and he rolled off me.

"He cried out: ‘Ah.’ I stuck him again. I stabbed him in the side. I felt the knife go in. Michael Maher was holding him down as well.

"I found the wallet in his front jeans pocket. He walked towards the cinema holding his stomach and limping. That’s the last time I saw him," the accused told gardaí on October 14, 2002.

In his statement to gardaí, the accused said after the fatal stabbing, Michael Maher and the defendant were in a further fight. Mr Maher, he said, had a "busted lip" and blood coming from his nose.

In the early hours of October 13, Maher and the accused allegedly opened the victim’s wallet. There were "loads of cards" in it including a provisional licence, bank cards and a Movie Magic card. "We dumped everything except the cash. I still had the knife. I put it back in my back pocket".

Past the UCI complex, the accused told gardaí, he "threw the knife away".

Robert Purdy told the jury that on the night Alan Higgins was fatally stabbed, he had been socialising with Michael Maher, Anthony Whelan and the accused.

A friend of the accused for more than 10 years, Mr Purdy said he left the trio at 10.45pm. When he was standing at the bottle bank at the corner of the UCI complex he allegedly saw his three friends come across the victim.

"There was a young guy in a white t-shirt walking from the entrance of UCI. He was walking down when the three boys stopped him.

"I seen him on the ground. It was Alan Higgins. One of them kicked him in the face. Then I saw one of them get down beside him," Mr Purdy said.

Mr Purdy claims: "Anthony Whelan punched him and Michael Maher kicked him (Higgins)."

"I saw him (Higgins) get up and walk back up the hill towards the UCI," Mr Purdy said.

Mr Purdy claims that Anthony Whelan came towards him and they walked together.

"Anthony Whelan had a red Nokia mobile phone, a 3310," Mr Purdy said.

Mr Whelan and Mr Maher pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Higgins last week at the Central Criminal Court.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Henry Abbott.