Man accused of murdering Nicola Collins told gardai she 'was happy in last moments'

The prosecution case closed today.

Ms Justice Eileen Creedon and the jury of nine men and three women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork heard more evidence from the memo of the interview of the accused by Detective Garda Kevin O’Donnell and Detective Garda Deirdre Murphy two days after her death.

Cathal O’Sullivan said, “It was her dying with me. She was happy in her last moments. We were singing songs before she fucking passed away.”

He said he spent up to 30 minutes trying to revive her, doing CPR. He told gardaí that he knew what he was doing as he pumped her chest in a 1-2-3-4 rhythm but he said he lost his upper body strength towards the end and used his feet and his legs to try to do the same thing.

“I cried, ‘Nicola, come back. Nicola, Nicola, Nicola, come back.’ I did hit her a lot at that time (when Ms Collins was dying). I was shouting, ‘Nicola, Nicola, wake up. Come back. Fucking help. I thought she was fucking joking, like.

“I thought she was joking. I thought she was holding her breath or something. I thought she was trying to freak me out.

“I did hit her a number of times trying to bring her back. I thought she was joking. I am pretty sure she was dead when the jaw thing happened,” he said.

The deceased’s injuries included a fractured jaw.

Detectives said to the accused that when he phoned his friend Mathew Twomey in Limerick in the early hours of the morning in question, “you told him you had a fight with her, that she died and you brought her back to life.” He replied, “That is crazy.

Detectives asked him if he thought that a lifelong friend who grew up with him in Charleville would have made that up. He said his friend was “a bit blurry” during the three phone calls he made to him.

Detectives asked, “Did you assault her?” He replied, “No, I did not. I tried to revive her.”

It was put to him that she was assaulted on at least two occasions – in the bathroom and in the bedroom - and that she was viciously assaulted. The accused man replied, “She was never assaulted.” “How do you explain over 130 injuries?” detectives asked and he replied, “She got injured coming at me. She was the instigator. I did not assault her.”

Asked why he did not call the ambulance sooner, he said that it was her wish, which he said she expressed on the Thursday and again later on the Sunday, that he would not call an ambulance.

The accused said the deceased used to harm herself and that there was an incident in the days before she died.

“She had a knife and dragged it across her hand. She is a self-harmer. I just wanted to get the fucking thing off her. There was a struggle ensued or whatever the fuck it is. At the end of that we were on the couch.

"She would not stab you but because I was trying to take the knife off her she kind of was. She didn’t go to stab me but because I was trying to take the knife off her she would kind of go like that. I got it off her. I fucked it underneath the bed.”

The trial continues tomorrow.