Surprise outcome in murder trial of young man with Laois address

A Central Criminal Court jury has failed to reach a verdict in the murder trial of a 20-year-old man, who said he acted in self defence and was protecting his home when a drunk fisherman entered as a trespasser.

Mr Kerrie (20), with an address at St Brigid's Square, Portarlington in Co Laois had pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Power (25) at Shanakiel, Dunmore East, Co Waterford on July 26, 2018.

After approximately six hours and 53 minutes of deliberations the jury returned today unable to reach a verdict on Thursday, July 17. 

The seven men and four women of the jury began considering their verdict on Tuesday afternoon and had deliberated for five hours and 17 minutes when the judge gave them the option of reaching a majority verdict or a possible disagreement. 

The 11 jurors returned less than two hours later and when the registrar asked the forewoman of the jury if they had reached a verdict on which at least ten of them agreed, she said "No". 

Ms Justice Eileen Creedon said the jury had written ‘Disagreement’ next to the count on the issue paper and thanked them for their service. "I know this was a very difficult case and thank you for the time you gave to it," she added. 

The judge exempted them from jury service for ten years.

She remanded Mr Kerrie on continuing bail on the same terms and conditions until the next list of fixed dates at the Central Criminal Court on March 3.

Mr Kerrie made no reaction when the disagreement was announced.

The two-week murder trial at the Central Criminal Court heard that Mr Power sustained a single stab wound to the front of the chest which penetrated his heart.

Counsel for the DPP, Michael Delaney SC, said the jury could be satisfied that the prosecution had proved the case of murder against Mr Kerrie beyond a reasonable doubt.

Whilst the defence said in its closing address that this was an enormous tragic event, they submitted it was an act of self defence. "Mr Kerrie had no intention to do anything other than protect his own home," said defence barrister Ciaran O'Loughlin SC.

The jury had the option of returning three verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Mr Kerrie, namely; guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter or not guilty.

In her charge to the jury, Ms Justice Creedon said if they were satisfied that Mr Kerrie was not acting in self defence, that the accused knew that the force used by him was excessive and that he intended to kill or cause serious harm to Mr Power then the offence of murder had been set out.

If, having considered the evidence, the jury found Mr Kerrie had an honest belief that Mr Power had entered the house as a trespasser to commit a criminal act and they found the force used by Mr Kerrie was reasonable, then the accused was not acting unlawfully and should be acquitted.

If the jury found that Mr Kerrie had an honest belief that Mr Power entered the house as a trespasser but that the accused employed more force than necessary in the circumstances but no more force than he felt was reasonable, then they must return a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.

Mr Kerrie took to the stand at his own trial last week, telling the jury that Mr Power had kicked in the front door of his home, attacked him and threatened to kill his mother.

Under cross-examination, prosecution counsel Mr Delaney put it to the accused that it was "a pack of lies" to suggest Mr Power had "fallen on the knife" and submitted that the accused had instead deliberately stabbed him. Mr Kerrie said that Mr Power had "tried to kick the knife out of my hand. I went to move out of the way at the same time and then when he came in on top of me he lost his footing."

In his closing speech, Mr Delaney said the case "bore out the true folly of taking the law into your own hands". The defendant, he argued, could have let Mr Power walk out of his house that night but decided to take the law into his hands "at a level much greater and with much deadlier consequences" than Mr Power intended when he entered the Kerrie home.

Describing Mr Kerrie's account as "inherently implausible" and "stretching credibility", Mr Delaney suggested to the defendant when he was on the stand that this was an act of retaliation and not an act of self-defence, which the accused denied.

Mr Kerrie also refuted the proposition from counsel that he had deliberately stabbed Mr Power in the chest and there was nothing accidental about the incident. "That's not true," said the accused.

The lawyer told the jurors in his closing speech that "the most telling piece of evidence" were the accused's words heard in the background that night when his mother was on the phone to gardai. These, he said, were not the words of someone who was in fear of their life as Mr Kerrie had told gardai on the phone that night.

The defendant had accepted in his evidence that he could be heard shouting "I'll take your life, I hope you're dead. I'll take your life" in the background on the 999 call.

Mr Delaney stressed in his closing speech that these were words of "defiance and malice", which revealed the accused's true state of mind when he stabbed the fisherman. He told the jury that they could be satisfied that the prosecution had proved the case of murder against Mr Kerrie beyond a reasonable doubt.

The jury listened to a 999 recording of Mr Kerrie telling a dispatcher "I'm actually so in fear of my life right now" after he said he stabbed Mr Power "by accident" and that the man had come "in the front door at him" and tried to hit him.

"I did it but I didn't mean to though," Mr Kerrie told the emergency services. "My life is going to be gone over him coming in here," he also said.

Evidence was given that Mr Power was of the view that damage to the wing mirror of his car had been caused maliciously by Mr Kerrie that night. Mr Power then made his way into the defendant's house, where an altercation took place between the two men. Mr Kerrie told the jury that a chair had been put up against the door for the previous few months as they were waiting to get a new lock on it.

The deceased's best friend, Christopher Lee, testified that Mr Power had run towards Kerrie's house that night but he lost sight of him at the corner as he took off. "I could hear glass breaking but I couldn't see," he said. When he got around the corner, Mr Lee said a window in the Kerrie house had been broken and Mr Power was in the hallway of the accused's house.

"He [Mr Kerrie] had a long knife in his hand and he shouted at Jack something about the house. Jack turned around and that's when Dean stabbed him with the knife. I knew it was the upper body and he [Jack] had his back to me," Mr Lee told the jury.

"Jack turned around to walk out [of the house] towards me. I was shouting at him, he didn't even acknowledge me, he had gone so pale. He went to walk past me as if I wasn't there," he said.

Mr Kerrie gave evidence that he woke up "to the noise of glass breaking", heard the door being kicked in and met Mr Power at the door to his brother's bedroom. "He grabbed me by the neck, he was choking me, I was dizzy on the ground. He threw me into the corner underneath the shelf," said Kerrie.

When the accused came to after a few minutes, Mr Kerrie said Mr Power was screaming in his mother's face saying that he was going to kill her and was pulling her backwards by the hair. The defendant took a knife from the foot of his brother's bed and said he stabbed the deceased with it.

The prosecution said in its closing remarks that "a decoy" black and white handled knife was "planted" by Mr Kerrie in the hallway of his house, which was swabbed for blood but "curiously no blood was found on the blade". Gardai found a similar blood-stained knife partially concealed on the draining board in the kitchen of the house, which contained Mr Power's DNA.

EVIDENCE IN TRIAL:

At the outset of the trial, Christopher Lee gave evidence that he met his "best pal" Jack Power at the entrance to Shanakiel in the early hours of July 26 and recalled him saying "something about the wing mirror on his car".

Mr Lee remembered Mr Power running towards Kerrie's house and "took after" him but lost sight of him at the corner. "I could hear glass breaking but I couldn't see," said the witness, adding that he did not have a view of Kerrie's house at that stage. 

When he got around the corner, Mr Lee saw a window in the Kerrie house had been broken and that Mr Power and the defendant were in the hallway of the house. 

The witness got emotional as he told the jury that Mr Power was leaving the house and walking towards him when he saw the accused coming from the kitchen.

"He [Mr Kerrie] had a long knife in his hand and he shouted at Jack something about the house. Jack turned around and that's when Dean stabbed him with the knife. I knew it was the upper body and he [Jack] had his back to me," said Mr Lee.

The witness added: "I was shouting at him [Mr Power]. He didn't even acknowledge me, he had gone so pale. He went to walk past me as if I wasn't there. I was probably standing at the doorstep, Jack was only a few feet away from me". 

Mr Lee ran to his father's house in the Shanakiel estate and rang the gardai and ambulance to tell them that his friend had been stabbed. 

The witness picked up a golf club before he left his father's house and used it to break three windows in the Kerrie house. 

Barry Lee, the younger brother of Christopher Lee, said he met Mr Power at "Butcher Power's pub" around 9pm on July 25. He said Mr Power told him that the wing mirror was torn off his car and there was a dent in it.

Shane Fitzgerald, a cousin of the defendant's, told the trial that when he arrived at the scene, Mr Kerrie told him he was "after stabbing Jack". The witness said that when gardai arrived, the accused was standing in the corner of his kitchen with a bottle of holy water in his hand.

Sergeant Pat Kelly said that Mr Power had already been placed in an ambulance when he arrived at Shanakiel at 4.07am. He said that all the windows of the house were broken and Ann Fitzgerald, the accused's mother, opened the door to him.

When he walked into the hallway, there was a broken chair and a kitchen knife on the floor of the hallway. "Mr Kerrie was sitting in the corner of the kitchen. He was crying and saying sorry and holding a bottle of water. There was a small drop of blood on his clothing," said the Sergeant.

Sgt Kelly arrested Mr Kerrie on suspicion of assault causing harm to Mr Power and cautioned him. In reply to the caution, Kerrie said: "He should not have come into my house. I was asleep. I heard a smash, the front window breaking. He grabbed my mother. He started punching and kicking her. I grabbed a knife and stabbed him with it".

Under cross-examination, Sgt Kelly agreed with defence counsel Ciaran O'Loughlin SC that he had recorded Mr Kerrie saying at the time: "What the fuck has happened, he was hitting my mother".

Detective Garda Joyce Donoghue said she drove Mr Kerrie and his mother to Waterford Garda Station after his arrest. The detective said she did not observe any injuries to Ann Fitzgerald and she had not reported any to her either.

Detective Garda Janette O'Neill testified that she observed a large rock on the couch in the accused's sitting room and the head of a golf club in the first bedroom.

The detective said there was a black and white handled knife on the floor in the hallway and she found two knives behind the draining board, one of which was heavily blood-stained.

Forensic scientist Dr Stephen Clifford testified that DNA matching that of Kerrie's mother, Ms Fitzgerald, was obtained from a wooden leg of a broken chair found in the hallway of the house. Under cross-examination, Dr Clifford agreed with defence counsel Mr O'Loughlin that the leg of the chair must have come in contact with Ms Fitzgerald's blood. 

Dr Clifford said that a swab taken from the edge of a blood-stained knife, which was found behind the kitchen sink, matched Mr Power's DNA. A black and white handled knife, which had been lying on the floor in the hallway, was swabbed for blood but no blood was found on the blade. 

The murder trial jury also listened to a 999 recording of Mr Kerrie saying "I'm actually so in fear of my life right now" after he told a dispatcher that he stabbed a fisherman "by accident" and that the man had come "in the front door at him" and tried to hit him in the early hours of the morning.

"I did it but I didn't mean to though," Mr Kerrie told the emergency services. "My life is going to be gone over him coming in here," he also said. 

The prosecution also played a 999 call made by Ms Fitzgerald to the jury. In the audio recording, the jury heard Ms Fitzgerald tell the dispatcher that the windows had been broken in her house. When the dispatcher asked "is that all that is after happening at Shanakiel; your windows have been broken?", Ms Fitzgerald replied "yes".

Retired Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis gave evidence that Mr Power sustained a single stab wound to the front of the chest which penetrated his heart. He said that the level of force involved in the stab wound was moderate. The witness agreed with defence counsel that, had the 25-year-old deceased been moving forward at the time, this would have contributed to the level of force.

A toxicology report detected alcohol and cocaine in his system and Mr Power was over three times the legal level of driving, Dr Curtis said.