A man accused of the murder of his partner by hitting her repeatedly across the face and head with the broken leg of a chair, claimed the victim was extremely violent towards him when she drank vodka during their 10-year relationship and had attacked him in the past with a knife, the Central Criminal Court sitting in Galway heard yesterday.
Kieran Lynch (40), from Askeaton, Co Limerick, denies the murder of his partner Catherine McEnery (35), of Feenagh, Kilmeady, Co Limerick, at Rose Cottage, Derryhoyle Mór, Craughwell, at a time unknown between July 16th and 17th, 2005.
Seven members of Ms McEnery's family are attending the trial which began last Thursday and is expected to last well into next week.
Mr Lynch apologised to Ms McEnery's family in a statement he made to gardaí shortly after her death. "I just want to say to her family I am truly sorry for what happened," Mr Lynch said.
A video tape played to the jury yesterday, which showed Mr Lynch being interviewed by gardaí at Gort Garda station the day after Ms McEnery's battered body was found in a blood-soaked bed in the cottage, showed the accused calmly rolling cigarettes while telling gardaí the deceased was a violent woman when she drank vodka and that she had assaulted him in the past, including on one occasion with a knife.
"She is extremely violent. You could get your throat cut in your sleep. She hit me before in the back of the skull and I was knocked out for half an hour. She is extremely violent with vodka in her," Mr Lynch said.
He admitted that he had hit Ms McEnery in the face three or four times with the broken leg of a kitchen chair on Saturday night, July 16th, after she attacked him with a piece of timber but he denied that she had bled or that several rooms were splattered with her blood during the assault.
He could not account for a large pool of blood found by gardaí the next morning on the floor near the sitting room fireplace, where the victim had fallen after being struck with the chair leg, or the blood found splattered on the floors and walls of several other rooms in the cottage.
"The place was destroyed. There was a big pool of blood in front of the fireplace and there was blood all over the rest of the floor, but I didn't see that blood until the following morning. It could have been there when I lifted her into the bed, but I do not recall seeing the blood until the following morning," he said.
Mr Lynch claimed Ms McEnery must have got up during the night and fallen about the house.The trial continues today with experts from the Garda Forensic Science Laboratory giving technical evidence.